SPARTANBURG, S.C. — NorthMark Compute and Cloud, known as NMC2, is steering a quarter-million dollars to Kids Upstate programs that keep elementary students busy after the school day in Spartanburg.
Under the deal, NMC2 steps in as top sponsor for the Pine Street Kids Club plus the nonprofit’s basketball and cheer squads. Chief operating officer Mark Johnson cast the money as neighborly support for a group that has given working families a reliable after-school landing spot for more than three decades.
One hundred thousand dollars will fund hands-on science and tech lessons, summer learning, career field visits and Teachers Up, a paid path for people who want to teach, at the Pine Street site. The remaining $150,000 pays for rides, outings, team activities and meals at six Kids Clubs tied to Spartanburg School District 7.
Kids Upstate president Greg Tolbert said the pledge opens more doors for children citywide. The group says nearly all Kids Club parents credit the program with letting them hold full-time jobs. Kids Upstate, which started in 1988 under a metro club banner, now serves upwards of a thousand pupils in grades one through five across Spartanburg and Cherokee counties.
NMC2 is raising a high-performance computing campus on the old Kohler property along South Pine Street. It has pledged community backing to County Council and OneSpartanburg while the build-out continues, and company materials say it is pouring energy into local STEM schooling and workforce pipelines as it aims for roughly 150 permanent jobs on site.
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