SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — For more than 50 years, the annual Juneteenth Celebration held by The Cooper Family Foundation has attracted hundreds in San Diego. Most recently, $25,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts helped their efforts in giving back to the community.
"It's made a huge difference in the quality of what we were able to present to the community, and our target base is an underserved community," Marla Cooper tells me.
But next year will be a different story with recent federal funding cuts.
"We're scrambling to figure out how we still can have a quality event with $25,000 less," Cooper explains. "To some people, that's no money, but to us, that is a lot of our funding that we budget for each and every year."
Marla's daughter, Monique Brown, helps with those grants, and social media says the move makes a direct impact on their mission.
"We're a nonprofit. We're not a for-profit. We don't sell any products. We just give back, and so it will hurt us," Brown tells me.
Back in February, ABC 10News first spoke to Marla and Lana Cooper with the foundation as it was being honored for their hard work to give back to underserved communities and keep Juneteenth alive here in San Diego.
"If we don't have the $25,000, then we have to start cutting, where we have already given deposits to performers -- we already have contracts."
Funds are being cut, forcing them to cut as well. Not only does it hurt the family's mission, but it also hurts the community.
"It is really specifically targeted to the African American community, underserved community, uplifting our community and like so we don't know what that's going to to mean for us, but it won't stop the event," says Brown.
Despite losing vital funds, the show must go on; however, they must adjust.
"We're losing grant funding," says Brown. "Then we won't be able to pay for those performances that we're bringing to the community, and like I said, the big thing for me is feeding everybody. We won't be able to feed people free of cost. So you're hurting not only us, you're hurting the community that we serve and people look forward to this event."
But the Cooper family tells me they're dedicated to figuring out how to keep it going one way or another.
"We're still going to have Juneteenth. We are still going to fundraise year-round. We're still going to dig in our own pockets because it's our love project. So we're not going to stop what we're doing, but it is a huge impact on us."
