In April of 2021, Sorry State Records received a call about a record collection that had belonged to Veola McLean of Southern Pines, North Carolina. Miss Veola passed away early in 2021, and according to her obituary in The Sandhill Sentenel:

Miss Veola McLean was many things… pioneer, educator, veteran, historian, mentor, activist, advocate, philanthropist, super voter, MLK marcher, Black History exhibitor, scholarship fund founder, rabid collector of “Black Cultural History”, and, most of all, lover of life, “good trouble” and all things West Southern Pines. She ran toward life, not away from it even when glaucoma later claimed her vision. She never complained and was always up for an adventure.

We encourage you to read more about Miss Veola’s extraordinary life at this link: https://sandhillssentinel.com/obituary-for-veola-mclean/

When we examined Miss Veola's record collection, we realized immediately that it is very special. It includes somewhere around 5,000 LPs and 45s, and it's packed with jazz, soul, and blues rarities. On that trip we also learned that proceeds from the records' sale would go to the scholarship fund Miss Veola created. We wanted to celebrate Miss Veola's extraordinary life and the extra good these records will contribute to, so each record from Miss Veola's collection will include an insert that points you to this page.

If you're wondering how you can buy Miss Veola's records, they will follow the same protocols as the other used records we sell. The most desirable items will be offered to our brick and mortar customers first, and all items from the collection will have the postcard insert in front of the jacket. Items that don't sell after a few weeks will be posted to our website (we'll provide a link to the items for sale here once we start posting them) and/or our Discogs site. More niche items will be posted directly to our Discogs site, where we'll include a note in the description identifying which records belonged to Miss Veola.

If you buy a record from Miss Veola's collection from Sorry State Records, 50% of your purchase price has gone to the Veola McLean Scholarship Fund, which supports African-American graduates of Pinecrest High School attending North Carolina state colleges and universities. Below are photos of Miss Veola with past recipients of the scholarship. If you bought a record from Miss Veola's collection somewhere other than Sorry State and you'd still like to contribute to the scholarship fund, we'll soon post a donation button that will allow you to donate to the fund directly.