Cumberland Community Foundation began as the dream of one woman, Dr. Lucile West Hutaff. Dr. Hutaff, a Fayetteville native, graduated from Fayetteville High School in 1929. She attended Women’s College in Greensboro for two years and received her medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine.
Dr. Hutaff returned to Fayetteville in 1972 upon her retirement as a professor at Bowman-Gray Medical School in Winston-Salem, NC, and started Cumberland Community Foundation in July 1980 with an unrestricted gift of over $575,000.