Jerry and Sharon Berkstresser Fund – Becky Berkstresser Brill established this family and community fund to honor her parents and help simplify her charitable giving. This is a component fund of the Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri.

Dignity Now Endowment Fund – This is a fund which support the long terms needs of Dignity Now. It is a component fund of the Community Foundation of Taney County and is a new Agency Partner in the social services category.

O’Day Family Mausoleum Maintenance Fund – John Baldwin O’Day has established this fund which will distribute to the City of Springfield for the public beautification and historic preservation of the O’Day Family Mausoleum located in Hazelwood Cemetery. Should the available to spend be more than the City of Springfield needs for this task, the remaining available amount will granted to Ozark Greenways for the maintenance and improvement of the greenway trail network in Springfield-Greene County.

Ozark Actors Theatre Endowment Fund – This fund will support the long term sustainability of the local theatre in Rolla, Mo. It is a component fund of the Meramec Regional Community Foundation, and is a new Agency Partner in the arts category.

Skyline R-II Youth Empowerment Fund – This fund will support youth programming. This is a component fund of the Douglas County Community Foundation.

The new location at 301 N. Main Ave. is several blocks west of its current site at 215 S. Campbell Ave.

The new building was purchased through the Community Foundation of the Ozarks’ Mission-Related Investment program. This initiative offers below-market rate investments for projects that create a “double-bottom line” of both financial and social returns for Ozarks communities, instead of investing assets solely in financial markets.

The CFO will own the building with The Kitchen having options to purchase throughout the 15-year term at a decreasing amount.

A neighborhood meeting is scheduled from 4-6 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 4, at the current Campbell Avenue location, in preparation for a rezoning request to go before the Springfield Planning and Zoning Commission later in January. The building on North Main is currently zoned for Heavy Manufacturing and the new zoning would be the less intense use of Center City.

The program began in 2000 as a free drop-in center for youth ages 13-20 who are homeless or runaways.  Trained staff offer food, shower facilities, clothing and laundry facilities, recreation, information about other available services, assessment to help them develop life plans, and an off-site safe emergency shelter for those aged 17-20. It also offers study and financial assistance to youth interested in pursuing their GEDs.

The Rare Breed is open from 3 to 11 p.m. Monday-Friday. It provides needed services, but does not provide for overnight stays, which are available elsewhere in the community.

The Kitchen sought a new location for the program because the number of youth using the Rare Breed’s services has been steadily increasing. The Youth Outreach Center averaged 58 youths each day in 2010 and the first six months of 2011; however there has been a drastic jump to 72 youths a day for the last six months.

The proposed new facility at 301 N. Main Ave. has 10,000 square feet and will be able to accommodate the number of youth who need these services.

“The Rare Breed Program provides a safe environment for young people who are faced with the challenges of life on the streets,” said Rorie Orgeron, Chief Executive Officer of The Kitchen, Inc. “This program offers hope to a young person feeling alone and scared.  Without this program they would be constantly afraid, hungry, lonely, and at-risk.”

“We try to facilitate needs for the community and this allows The Kitchen to get into a much larger building for this program for really less than they are paying in lease costs and they have an option to purchase it down the line,” CFO President Brian Fogle said. “We are pleased that we were able to respond to their request for assistance in finding a more suitable location for the important services they provide the at-risk youth of our community.”

We have a very special program this quarter, which will focus on disaster preparedness and response. In the wake of the Joplin tornado, nonprofits in our region have become more aware of their plans (or lack of plans) in case of a disaster. We are bringing a panel of experts to this quarterly session to discuss with you the ways you can become more prepared for the unknown as an organization.

Our panel will consist of the following individuals:

Erin Coryell – Program Officer, Midwest Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery for the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation based in Eden Prairie, Minn.;

Don Greenlee - Program Director of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Jasper and Newton Counties (Joplin); 

Tim Connell – Commercial Insurance Consultant at Connell Insurance, Inc.; and

Ryan Nicholls - Director of the Springfield-Greene County Office of Emergency Management.

This panel will be moderated by Tiffany Applegate of X-Factor Consulting. Each panelist will discuss his or her area of expertise, and there will be time for questions at the end. If you have a specific question you would like Applegate to ask the panel and would like to submit that question in advance, please send it to bdierks@cfozarks.org.

Parking for this session is available in the garage across the street from our office or in the CFO lot behind our building.

Please RSVP to Bridget Dierks at bdierks@cfozarks.org or directly to voicemail at (417) 447-5360.  Space is limited, so RSVP soon to ensure your seat in this informative and helpful session.

First of all, it’s a thoughtful, easy gift: Many folks simply don’t want much in the way of things, and a gift to a favorite nonprofit agency in their name is a wonderful way to go.

CFO has more than 400 agency partners, most of which you can donate to online. Simply click here to go to our online donation portal. Be sure to fill out all of the information (writing the name of the agency you want to donate to in the “description” field). You will also be asked if this is a gift donation, and to provide the name of the person for which you are making the donation. It’s that simple.

Click here to view our list of agency partners. If you have any questions about the process, or about the agencies affiliated with CFO, please call us at (417) 831-6199 or e-mail mlemmon@cfozarks.org.

In all, 23 of the CFO’s 44 affiliates participated in the Hunger Challenge, which leverages the total of $250,000 at a 10:1 ratio of buying, transporting and distributing food through the OFH network of feeding programs and pantries.

The Walmart State Giving Foundation awarded a $125,000 grant to Ozarks Food Harvest for a second challenge opportunity earlier this year after last year’s success with a $100,000 grant for the original Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge.

In this year’s Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge II, 25 food programs across the region worked with the 23 CFO affiliates to raise matching funds by the end of September.

Grant presentations, shown in the gallery below, have been made with affiliate and food program leaders in a number of the communities over the past month. The participating affiliates were: Aurora, Bolivar, Cassville, DACO, Dallas, Dent, El Dorado Springs, Finley River, Houston, Jacks Fork, Lockwood, Marshfield, Monett, Mount Vernon, Mountain Grove, Neosho, Nixa, Oregon County, Seymour, Stockton, Southwest Missouri, Taney County and West Plains.

“We appreciate the cooperative spirit between our affiliate foundations and their local food pantries to jointly tackle this matching grant opportunity,” CFO President Brian Fogle said.

This program began in response to a national report  – “Hunger in America 2010” – describing the extent to which hunger plagues Ozarks communities. An estimated 155,000 Ozarkers face chronic hunger issues, according to the report.

“We are grateful for the funding from the Walmart State Giving Program which allows us to leverage hunger relief support to our local Ozarks communities,” said Bart Brown, CEO at Ozarks Food Harvest.

“There’s a growing population of clients who are not eligible for government assistance such as WIC or the National School Lunch Program. This ‘gap’ truly relies on our member pantries and feeding sites to help feed their families,” Brown said. “The current child food insecurity rate is sobering. More than a quarter of our children — five percent higher than the national rate — now face hunger, or do not know where their next meal is coming from.”

Ozarks Food Harvest is the Feeding America food bank for southwest Missouri, serving more than 300 hunger relief organizations across 28 Ozarks counties in addition to long-term relief sites in Joplin. The Food Bank reaches 20,000 individuals weekly and distributes one million pounds of food monthly. OFH was named the 2011 Small Business of the Year by the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. Learn more at ozarksfoodharvest.org and at facebook.com/ozarksfoodharvest.

The Learning Community is an in-depth training opportunity being offered to 10 CFO agency partners in its first year. In addition to day-long educational sessions, trainer Tiffany Applegate, co-founder of  X Factor Consulting, also works one-on-one with each participant to customize the material to their own organization’s needs.

The “Making a Difference” segment, produced by Mike Smith, profiled two of those participants, veteran non-profit leader Bonnie Keller of Ronald McDonald House, and a newer leader, Caitlin Kissee, the business affairs manager for the Springfield Ballet.

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks made the first awards in a new Metro Springfield grant round on Tuesday, Nov. 22, with $50,000 going to six agencies working on early childhood issues.

These grant awards are for programs that address the “red flags” related to early childhood issues identified in the Community Focus Report for Springfield-Greene County. Representatives from each of the six agencies will make brief remarks about the work they are doing to improve the health, safety and school readiness of young children in Springfield-Greene County.

The grants will be awarded to:

• Foundation for Springfield Public Schools: $8,500 to support a partnership between the Parents as Teachers program and the Springfield Chapter of the NAACP.
• Friends of Operation US: $5,000 for materials to provide expectant parents with foundational skills for childrearing.
• United Way of the Ozarks: $8,500 for materials to support the Downtown Family Circuit treks.
• Community Partnership of the Ozarks: $10,500 to implement a class-assessment tool to promote better teacher-child interactions.
• Lighthouse Child and Family Development Center: $8,750 to implement its resiliency project to improve social and emotional support for families with children from birth to age five.
• SafeHaven of the Ozarks: $8,750 for materials and space to provide counseling and life skills to children placed in foster care due to abuse or neglect.

“So many of the red-flag issues identified throughout the Community Focus report could be improved by giving our kids the best possible start in life and preparing them as well as possible to succeed in school,” CFO President Brian Fogle said. “We wanted to emphasize this with a specific grant round this year focused on early childhood development.”

For more information on the CFO’s grantmaking programs, visit: www.cfozarks.org/grants.

The Springfield-Greene County Park Board joined the Springfield Downtown Kiwanis Club to break ground today on a new playground at Jenny Lincoln Park that will offer accessible equipment for those with all levels of ability.

The Kiwanis Club conceived the idea of the accessible playground and partnered with the Park Board to locate it at the 9.3-acre park in downtown Springfield. The club raised $100,000 for construction of the park, which included a $10,000 matching grant from the CFO’s 2010 Metro Springfield Red-Flag Response grant cycle.

“This was a long journey and we worked hard to get here,” said Pat Dierking, President of the Downtown Kiwanis club. The group worked with the Southwest Center for Independent Living for guidance and resources to design the playground effectively for all abilities.

“It is another community-led initiative that makes this a community affair,” Greene County Associate Commissioner Harold Bengsch said. “That’s what our Parks system is known for.”

Park Board Chair Jerry Clark said the project is near and dear to her heart because her late husband was a Kiwanis member. She also credited Parks Director Jodie Adams, who celebrated the groundbreaking as one of her last official events before she retires after more than 30 years in the Parks system on Thursday.

This competitive grant cycle was open to non-profit agencies providing services and programs directly tied to the red flags identified in the Community Focus Reports for Springfield-Greene County.

The CFO received nearly $240,000 in requests for the $125,000 available for the challenge grants, which were reviewed by a community grant panel. Each agency will have until Feb. 4, 2012 to raise at least the amount of the grant recommendation in order to receive the matching funds. The final grants will be awarded at a Feb. 15, 2012 reception at the CFO.

The agencies participating in the 2011-12 Community Response Challenge Grant cycle are:

• Big Brothers/Big Sisters: $7,100 for salaries, training materials and supplies to enhance children’s self-esteem through relationships with positive adult role models.
• CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates): $10,000 for volunteer training and recruitment to improve outcomes for children placed in the child-protective system.
• Child Advocacy Center: $8,800 to fund additional forensic interviewers, child advocates, technology and legal costs to help children who may be victims of abuse.
• Community Partnership of the Ozarks: $6,700 for expenses for facilitator training and evaluation tool development to promote resilient children and healthy families.
• Crosslines: $8,800 to purchase food for the food pantry.
• Connections Handyman Services: $8,800 for building materials, labor costs and material delivery to provide home repairs for low-income seniors and people with disabilities.
• Harmony House: $8,800 for materials and services for emergency shelter services.
• The Kitchen: $12,500 for salary costs for office supervision, patient, pharmacy and medical assistants at the medical clinic.
• Lighthouse Child and Family Development Center: $9,000 to support scholarships, a family coordinator, childcare and materials for intensive family case management services.
• Ozarks Food Harvest: $7,000 for food, materials and support for children’s weekend backpack programs.
• Ozarks Regional YMCA: $12,500 for staff, supplies, facility and school rental costs for quality after-school opportunities for families who cannot afford certified childcare services.
• Ronald McDonald House Tooth Truck: $12,500 for supplies for “pilot brushing” program to provide preventative dental services to at-risk children.
• The Victim Center: $12,500 for services, supplies and professional development to provide prevention education, crisis intervention, counseling and assistance to crime victims.

This is the third year the CFO has offered the competitive matching grants tied to the Community Focus Report, which released its 5th edition earlier this month. The CFO is a partner in producing the report, along with the United Way of the Ozarks, Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, Springfield-Greene County Library District and the Junior League of Springfield, to develop a broad-based consensus on the community’s strengths and challenges.

“These challenge grants have successfully leveraged $1.15 million over the last two years to help our non-profit partners sustain strong existing programs that are working to mitigate poverty, strengthen families, support victims of domestic violence and help people gain access to health care,” CFO Board Chairman Cliff Brown said.

Individuals interested in supporting the programs selected for the Community Response Challenge grants can make donations either directly to the agency, or to the Community Foundation of the Ozarks. Please note the name of the agency and “CRG Challenge” with your donation. Donations can be made online at: www.cfozarks.org/donate; the mailing address for the CFO is P.O. Box 8960, Springfield, MO, 65801.

Table Rock Lake CF President Jim Holt, far left, and Vice President Nita Jane Ayres, far right, present a ceremonial check to non-profit agencies in their Barry County service area as part of this week's community grantmaking awards.

Stone County service providers are honored at a luncheon in Kimberling City.

The Table Rock Lake Community Foundation presented 13 community grants this week totaling nearly $30,000, including two first-time challenge grants designated for start-up organizations or one-time projects.

“Our goal is to support projects that provide vital community services, encourage collaboration within groups and improve our region as a whole,” said Jim Holt, president of the TRLCF, a CFO affiliate foundation.

The Eagle Rock-Mano Fire Department received a $2,000 challenge grant for a new generator and the Lakes Area Child Advocacy Center received the other $2,000 challenge grant for a piece of specialized equipment to improve screening young children who may be victims of abuse.

The other grant recipients were:

• Central Crossing Fire District: $3,000 for two AEDs
• CHANCES of Stone County: $1,300 to send kids to Camp Barnabas
• Children’s Smile Center : $2,500 for services for Stone County
• Christian Associates of Table Rock Lake: $3,000 to support its Northern Stone Facility
• Kimberling Area Library Association: $1,500 for book purchases
• Kornerstone Family Literacy:  $3,000 Early Childhood Center &  High School Recovery Program
• Lives Under Construction Boys Ranch:  $2,000 for its Community Assistance Program
• Pregnancy Life Line:  $2,000 for its  “Earn While You Learn” program curriculum
• Stone County Council on Aging: $1,250 for its Good Neighbor Transportation program
• Shell Knob Alliance of Churches: $3,000 for Community Assistance Programs
• Tri-Lakes Animal Shelter: $1,500 to help support improved conditions