Community Foundation of the Ozarks

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks will host a celebration at 2 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012, to award matching funds for the Metropolitan Springfield Community Response Challenge Grants.

The event will take place at the CFO’s Community Room, 425 E. Trafficway, in Springfield. As part of the ceremony, each receiving agency will have a chance to share a few words about the projects and initiatives these grant monies will help fund.

The event will recognize the successful efforts of 13 non-profit agencies that will receive $125,000 in matching funds for a total of $250,000 raised to support programs representing early childhood development, hunger, health and human services, education, and housing stabilization.

This is the third year the CFO has offered the competitive matching grants tied to the Community Focus Report, which released its 5th edition in Fall 2011. 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. You can read the current and past Community Focus Reports at www.springfieldcommunityfocus.org.

“We are very pleased that these agencies responded to the challenge, allowing us to match this $125,000 and help these agencies continue to make a real difference in Springfield and Greene County,” said Community Foundation of the Ozarks Board Chair Cliff Brown. “We appreciate the hard work of our grant panel and all of the agencies working to address these red flags in our community.”

The agencies and projects that will be receiving challenge grant awards 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.

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 had until Feb. 3, 2012 to raise at least the amount of the grant recommendation in order to receive the matching funds. The CFO expresses its appreciation to the volunteer grant committee comprised of: Dr. Gloria Galanes (Co-Chair), Dr. Tom Prater (Co-Chair), David Yaktine, Misty Jordan, Ferba Lofton, Tom DenOuden, Debbie Shantz, Carol Cruise and Randy Russell (CFO staff representative).

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks includes 44 affiliate community foundations; more than 400 non-profit and school partners; more than 2,000 funds; and assets of $177 million as of Dec. 31, 2011.

A young girl who lost a front tooth in an accident could only have it replaced with a “flapper,” a temporary dental implant that she had to remove to play clarinet in the school band. Her family’s Medicaid coverage wouldn’t cover a new permanent tooth.

What would that do for that girl’s self-esteem, Robert Marsh asked rhetorically as he accepted the Fordland Clinic’s $9,200 grant awarded this week from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks and Commerce Trust Company through the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Regional Grantmaking Program.

The Fordland Clinic was one of 14 recipients of this year’s Coover grants for efforts to fight regional poverty totaling $127,500.

One of the themes in this year’s applications was for dental assistance because Medicaid funding is very limited in that area.

“There are children losing teeth who didn’t have to lose them,” Marsh said.

The Ozarks Resource Group in Buffalo also received a $5,000 Coover grant for dental services focused on preventative hygiene and education.

“This program brings toothbrushing to the schools for some kids who have never had a toothbrush in their lives,” Cheryl Eversole said in accepting the group’s grant for its “Bright Smiles” dental program.

Other grant awards were made to programs focused on similar basic needs such as hunger and homelessness. Care to Learn chapters in Clever, Rogersville and Willard received funds for their young chapters’ efforts to supply weekend backpacks, shoes, clothing and hygiene items to students in their districts. Least of  These, a food pantry serving Christian County, also received a grant to partner with Care to Learn to serve areas of the county where chapters don’t exist. They’ll use the money for a “personal care initiative” that will provide hygiene products, toilet paper and other necessities not covered by food stamps.

The Kitchen, Inc., will use its $18,340 grant to extend its “One Door” homelessness prevention services into Christian County.

Christian County has seen an increase in homelessness during the economic downturn, particularly among families who have had to “double up” with other households and then find themselves out on the street, Coordinator Randy McCoy said.

“By tying it all together in a regional approach, kids don’t have to move school districts, so it’s less traumatic for them,” McCoy said.

CFO President Brian Fogle, who presented the grants with Commerce Trust Vice President Jill Reynolds, summed up the stories from the grant recipients as both heart-wrenching and uplifting.

“I hear these heart-wrenching stories you are telling and it can get one quite dejected,” Fogle said. “The other side of the coin is the great work you are doing every day in transforming lives. You’re making a difference in someone’s life every day.”

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks, in partnership with Commerce Trust Company, will present grants totaling $127,500 at 2:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 9. The grants will be awarded to 14 regional organizations that work on rural poverty issues across southern Missouri.

Media are invited to attend the 2012 Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Regional Grantmaking Program presentation, which will take place at Commerce Trust Company, 1345 E. Battlefield Road, Springfield. Each agency receiving a grant will make comments about the needs and services being provided in their communities that led to the grant requests.

This year’s grant awards will be used for a wide range of programs focusing on basic needs including hunger and nutritional food programs, homeless prevention, medical and dental care, child abuse resources and other human-services needs. The grant committee received more than $715,000 in requests for this year’s grant cycle, up from about $500,000 in requests for last year’s pool of $105,000.

These grants are made possible through the generosity of the late Julia Dorothy Coover, who worked for Commerce Bank for 30 years. She established the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation in 1992 to honor her husband’s memory. With this year’s awards, the Coover Charitable Foundation surpasses $1.5 million in grantmaking across the Ozarks since its founding.

The following agencies will receive 2012 Coover Regional Grantmaking awards:

(more…)