By BILLY BALL

bball@sanfordherald.com

SOUTHERN PINES — UPS made a special delivery to one local nonprofit Friday.

The parcel company presented a $20,000 check to Lee County's Christians United Outreach Center (CUOC), a local food pantry that has weathered heating and cooling issues for months at its Lee Avenue thrift store.

Nonprofit heads will use the cash to purchase a new heating and air system in the thrift store, just in time for the chilly weather in Lee County.

The agency was facing sweltering heat when officials pleaded unsuccessfully with the Sanford City Council for emergency funds in July, and the UPS announcement comes as temperatures are expected to dip below the freezing mark this weekend.

“All of you know how brutal the summer was,” said UPS worker and CUOC volunteer Nancy Whalen. “It was not very pleasant in there.”

The City Council rebuffed the nonprofit's calls for help this summer, with members complaining the charity giveaway was setting a bad precedent. If the funding was approved, battered local agencies could line up in droves to stump for taxpayer dollars, council members said.

The rejection came despite council member's moves to include at least $46,000 in the current fiscal year budget for nonprofits like the cash-strapped Boys and Girls Clubs, as well as other area agencies like Sanford's Temple Theatre and the Lee County Arts Council.

Whalen said UPS stepped up through its charitable arm, the UPS Foundation, to funnel money to the ailing nonprofit following the council decision.

A check was presented to Dew at a UPS hub in Southern Pines Friday morning.

CUOC controls the largest food pantry in Lee County, nonprofit Executive Director Teresa Dew said Friday, supplying more than 860 local families a month with food supplies.

“With the economy out there, it's just a great need,” Dew said.

Agency members have complained that the failed heating and cooling unit in the thrift store made work treacherous at times for volunteers staffing the facility.

CUOC uses money from the thrift store to bankroll its operations, and Dew once said cash might have been diverted from purchasing food to repairing the store unit if a benefactor didn't open up the pocketbook.

“We don't know what we'd do without you,” Dew told UPS officials Friday.

U.S. Congresswoman-elect Renee Ellmers and N.C. House of Representatives-elect Mike Stone were on hand for the presentation Friday. Stone, currently a member of the Sanford City Council, was one of the members who nixed CUOC's calls for help in July.

At the time of the council decision, Stone said CUOC officials should pursue individual or corporate donations rather than taxpayer-funded breaks.