It's not quite singing the blues, but the St. Joseph's Historic Foundation needs $50,000 by Sept. 3 to help stage its annual Bull Durham Blues Festival.
Bull's Eye couldn't reach anyone at the Foundation's Hayti Heritage Center for comment, but the Center has announced it started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money. As of noon, five contributors had pledged a total of $175.
According to a statement on the festival's Kickstarter web site (http://kck.st/OyGW4n), "with a strained economy (it) is no easy feat" to pay for a festival costing $250,000 or more.
The Hayti Center is further fiscally challenged by having to pay back almost $190,000 in misappropriated grant money from the Golden Leaf Foundation.
St. Joseph's, which operates the Hayti Center at the former St. Joseph's A.M.E. Church on Fayetteville Street, receives an annual grant from the city, along with the Carolina Theatre, Durham Arts Council and Lyon Park Community Center. For 2012-13, the subsidy is $292,000.
The 2012 Blues Festival is scheduled Sept. 7-8 at Durham Athletic Park. Headliners are Marcia Ball on Friday and the Bobby Blue Bland on Saturday.
The Hayti Center and its St. Joseph's Historic Foundation have staged the Bull Durham Blues Festival each fall since 1988.
