NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher receives $2 million grant from SECU Foundation

The grant funding will be used to construct a new education center

FORT FISHER, NC (WWAY) — The North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher received a sizable grant contribution on Monday.  

The State Employees Credit Union Foundation awarded the aquarium a $2 million grant to construct a new facility and revamp the existing one. It’s the largest single contribution in the NC Aquarium Society’s history.  

SECU Foundation Executive director Jama Campbell said grant funding is made possible  by $1 donations made each month by the credit union’s 2.8 million members. 

Grants are given to organizations in human services, education, housing, and healthcare that credit union members can enjoy. 

“So we’re looking at choosing programs and projects that we know are going to benefit their lives,” Campbell explained. 

The grant will be used to construct a new education center and revamp existing habitats, marking the first major expansion at aquarium since 2002. 

“Since that time, we’ve welcomed over 10 million visitors and over half a million school children, so we are really excited to be able to enhance the facility, reinvigorate the facility,” NC Aquarium Division Director Hap Fatzinger said. 

Fatzinger added the new education center will be focused on hands-on learning. 

“Our school programs that come in, those children get to not long learn in the aquarium, in the classroom, connect with the animals, but we also get to take them out the back door of the aquarium. Into the marsh, into the maritime forest. They go out, they get wet, they get muddy, they get mosquito bites, they act like kids out there while they’re learning and that is the most impactful way that we can create and share those experiences,” he explained. 

Fatzinger said the aquarium expects to break ground on the project later this year. The aquarium will be closed when the existing habitats are renovated.