Community Foundation of the Ozarks

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks and Commerce Trust Company awarded $100,500 in Coover grants for school-based projects including local ecology studies, visiting artists, history preservation, energy efficiency, and an on-campus store to teach job skills to special-needs students.

The grants from the CFO’s Rural Schools Partnership were awarded at the recent Rural Schools Rendezvous at the Thomasville Community Center. They are funded through a long-standing partnership with the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation Regional Grantmaking Program of Commerce Trust Company.

The Coover Place-Based Education grantmaking program is made possible by the generosity of the late Mrs. Coover, a longtime Commerce Bank employee, who established the Foundation in honor of her husband. Since its inception in 1992, the Coover Charitable Grantmaking program has awarded about $3.3 million to communities and schools across central and southern Missouri.

“If Mrs. Coover could only see the impact her generosity is having on our region, she would be amazed,” said Jill Reynolds, vice president at Commerce Trust Company and incoming president of the CFO Board of Directors.

The grants were awarded to the following schools during the RSP’s annual Rural Schools Rendezvous in Thomasville, Mo., on April 26.

• Placeworks Art Initiative: $20,000 to allow teaching artists to visit regional schools to create art projects that complement other curriculum areas.
• GLADE Mentor Development Program: $15,000 to use its existing field research class at Logan-Rogersville to create a framework to mentor environmental educators at other schools for student conservation projects.
• Nixa-Summit Intermediate: $7,100 for the Gardening’s Rich Opportunities (GRO) program where students in gardening, science and recycling clubs will transform a patch of land into a productive garden.
• Lockwood:  $15,000 to create an outdoor classroom at the South Park to study the ecology and preservation of local prairieland.
• Eminence: $15,000 for digital storytelling program to archive local history and recount historical events in the Shannon County area.
• Dallas County R-1: $15,000 to create the “Bison Bistro,” an on-campus store that will offer job-training skills for special-needs students.
• Aurora Youth Empowerment Project: $3,400 for students to research well-known local history characters to create live storytelling projects and develop a fall fundraiser for the youth philanthropy group’s grantmaking fund.
• Purdy: $11,000 for Purdy Recycling Club to install a 3.5KW solar power panel on the recycling center’s roof to zero out monthly utility costs.

In addition, five schools – Bakersfield, Thayer, Ava, Dora and Hartville – were awarded $5,000 Coover grants to participate in the Place-Based Institute hosted by the RSP and the Rural School and Community Trust in late May at the Rural Education Center on the MSU-West Plains campus.

Dr. Francisco Guajardo (right) speaks with Purdy student Lino Arez during his keynote address in Thomasville.

The Rural Schools Partnership and 100 of its closest friends spent Thursday, April 26 in Thomasville, Mo., where the tenants of place-based education were shared among educators, students and those with a passion for improving rural communities.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Francisco Guajardo, Ph.D., Rural School and Community Trust Vice Chair and Associate Professor in the Dept. of Educational Leadership University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas. He spoke about the importance of stories, not only in terms of the culture of our communities, but the value of each individual’s personal story. He was also an active participant in each of three breakout sessions, where students from Purdy, St. James and Dora shared RSP-sponsored projects with the Rendezvous attendees.

The business of the day included the awarding of Coover Place-Based education grants (totaling $125,500), the introduction of the new class of the Ozarks Teacher Corps, and an overview of the Placeworks program where schools can apply for a visiting artist to develop place-based art projects. Lunch and mingling rounded out the day.

Look for more on Thomasville, including full lists of grant recipients and Teacher Corps members, in coming days and weeks.

We’re gearing up for our third annual Rural Schools Rendezvous in Thomasville, Mo., where (among other highlights) we’ll announce the recipients of the 2012 Coover Place-Based Education Grants and introduce the new class of Ozarks Teacher Corps scholarship winners.

This year’s Rendezvous is set for April 26, with keynote speaker Dr. Francisco J. Guajardo, Ph.D., Vice-Chair of the Rural Schools and Community Trust and Associate Professor at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas.

A full schedule of events–as well as directions to Thomasville, in Oregon County–are after the jump. RSVP’s requested by Friday, April 13. If you have a stake in place-based education, we hope to see you there. (more…)