Developer's gift aids Chatham students, NCSU

WILSONVILLE -- Holland Gaines wasn't much of a Future Farmer of America when he was in the FFA in the early 1960s, but he thinks he's found a way to sow seeds for its students now.

Gaines and his brother, Alan, are giving a 10-plus-acre slice of their development, The Legacy at Jordan Lake, to N.C. State University to be used as an open-air classroom for agricultural and environmental education.

The gift comes with an endowment for three summer internship and college scholarship packages for Chatham County high school students, including one each year for a student in the agricultural studies program at Chatham Central High, where the Gaines brothers were in the FFA.

Among other things, students can use the property to study how residential development affects a sensitive natural environment such as Jordan Lake and its watershed.

"We're making a statement by the gift of the land," Gaines said. "We not only told you we were going to do this right. We're going to prove that we're doing it right."

The tract of land is bordered by Big Woods Road on the east, The Legacy at Jordan Lake on the west, a development called The Preserve at Jordan Lake on the north, and land owned by the Army Corps of Engineers on the south. It includes a section of Bear Tree Creek.

Critics of The Legacy have been skeptical of the Gaineses' claims that they would build 463 homes on more than 630 acres near the lake without further polluting Jordan Lake. If the development's on-site sewage-treatment plant or water-runoff collection system don't work as promised, the results likely be evident in Bear Tree Creek, where the students will report on it.

"They won't find anything," Gaines said. "But if they do, we'll figure out what the problem is and find a way to fix it."

Right now, The Legacy is a series of noisy sites: houses being built, landscaping being installed and land being cleared for a country club, spa and other amenities. A man-made waterfall is already in place just inside the gate, and miles of trails have been mapped out to encourage homeowners to exercise and spend time with their neighbors.

Houses at The Legacy start at about $900,000.

At a tented, catered ceremony Monday to formally announce the land gift and educational endowment, Gaines said that people with that kind of money have a responsibility to give something back to the place in which they live. That doesn't count the $500 million their neighborhood eventually will add to the Chatham County tax base.

Each month, Legacy residents will add to the educational endowment with $5 of their homeowners' dues. Residents also will have the opportunity to serve on a committee that will select the scholarship recipients and may be able to act as mentors to the students.

Josh Starling, executive director of the FFA Foundation, affiliated with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NCSU, said the land gift and scholarship program could serve as a model for other developers across the state. The FFA will hold the land and the endowment, which together make up the largest gift the foundation has received from a single donor.

Starling said the scholarships would start by funding three students for one year each at a college of their choice. All three students will be graduates of Chatham County high schools, and one each year will come from Chatham Central, whose FFA program is a regular winner at state and national FFA competitions.

The program's focus has changed over the years. With the decline of family farming, FFA members are now more likely to study forestry or horticulture.

The land on which The Legacy is being built includes several hundred acres on which Holland and Alan Gaines' father raised and harvested timber.

During their internships, students will work for a summer at the development, alongside landscape designers, for instance, or in the business office.

Julian Smith, who has run the FFA program at Chatham Central for 42 years, said the first scholarships should be awarded next year.