Community site seeks donations to preserve web presence

The history of one small textile community in Rutherford County continues through the generations online. Now, the website's founders are seeking funding to continue the site into the future.

Reno and Betty Bailey of Charlotte began the Remember Cliffside website 13 years ago as a way to keep themselves busy in retirement. They chose to create a memorabilia site about Reno's hometown and expected there would be a few pages of pictures and articles. The contributions from the community, however, soon made the site grow and grow and new material is regularly created and discovered.

The site, the Baileys say, has become a repository for all things Cliffside - its history, genealogy, profiles and life in the mill village. However, the site needs to be modernized in order to be responsive to tablets and phones and to convert it to a Wordpress platform. In the years ahead, the couple said, this would future proof the site and make maintaining it easier and less expensive.

To raise funds to update and maintain the site, the couple has created a campaign on indiegogo.com. The purpose of the campaign is to raise funds to hire one or more coding experts to develop custom Wordpress themes and layouts for the new version of the site and to apply PHP/MYSql methodology to new and existing elements; hire one or more people to convert the pages and photos to the new platform; and pay hosting fees and domain name renewals for the next decade. The fundraising goal is $18,000.

Donations are tax deductible. For more information, go to indiegogo.com and search for "Cliffside."