Our Community Cooks: Hillsborough Churches

The campaign will capture living community history in Hillsborough while it is still accessible—recipes, church stories, and member highlights that are often shared informally and easily lost. By working across a diverse set of congregations that have long served as community centers and safe spaces, the project will document distinct histories while also revealing shared cookways and common ground.

The campaign will produce Our Community Cooks: Hillsborough Church Recipes Through the Years, organized by participating churches. Each church section will include a pencil drawing of the church, a page of church history, and contributed recipes (5–10 per church), anchored by an introduction that situates the town’s history, its churches, and the importance of community.

Beyond the printed book, QR codes in each chapter will link to filmed segments of contributors teaching viewers how to make their dish. The work will culminate in a public launch event and potluck featuring dishes from the cookbook.

Major donors can partner by underwriting core elements—cookbook design and content production, marketing, and staging the launch event—while staying closely engaged as Blue Ridge Collaborative moves from collection to publication and launch.

This campaign matters now because it captures living community history while it is still accessible—recipes, church stories, and member highlights that are often shared informally and can be lost if they are not gathered and documented. Hillsborough’s churches have long served as community centers and safe spaces, and this project leverages that role to bring people together across a diverse set of congregations.

Waiting risks missing the opportunity to compile these contributions in a cohesive, community-wide format that recognizes distinct histories while also highlighting shared cookways and commonalities. The campaign’s timeline supports a focused window to collect recipes and stories, produce the cookbook, and convene the community around its launch.

If this campaign succeeds, Hillsborough will have a new, tangible cultural resource: Our Community Cooks: Hillsborough Church Recipes Through the Years—a cookbook organized by participating churches, each with its own section featuring a pencil drawing of the church, a page of church history, and contributed recipes.

Beyond a printed book, the project will unlock a richer, multimedia experience through QR codes in each chapter that link to filmed content of contributors teaching users how to make their dish. The campaign will also culminate in a community launch event and potluck featuring dishes from the cookbook, creating a shared space to celebrate both the distinct histories of congregations and the connections among them.

The campaign will deliver a completed cookbook that compiles recipes (5–10 per participating church) alongside church histories and highlights of specific members, with an introduction that situates the town’s history, its churches, and the importance of community. It will also deliver filmed cooking content connected to the book via QR codes, and a public launch event featuring a potluck of dishes from the cookbook.

Progress can be tracked and reported through concrete production milestones: the number of participating churches; the number of recipes collected; completion of church sections (drawings, history pages, and recipes); the number of QR-linked filmed segments produced; and execution of the community launch event. Financial reporting will align with the stated allocations: approximately 10% for fundraising and project management, about 65% for cookbook production via creative design and content contractors, and the remaining funds for marketing and staging the community event.

Major-donor partnership will be centered on enabling the cookbook’s production and the community launch, with support directly advancing the project’s core components: cookbook design and content production, marketing, and staging the launch event, alongside project management.

The source material does not specify giving levels or formal recognition benefits. In lieu of preset tiers, partnership can be structured around underwriting key elements of the project (for example, production, marketing, or the community event) and maintaining a close working relationship with Blue Ridge Collaborative as the project moves from collection to publication and launch.