Community Foundation of the Ozarks

There’s no denying that it has been a heat bomb of a summer in the Ozarks. The sweltering temperatures have made outdoor work miserable, and keeping living things alive has been something of a challenge.

With that in mind, students in the Chadwick R-1 School District should be doubly impressed by the transformation that awaits them when the new school year begins August 22. And a number of community volunteers, students and school staff from the small, rural town in eastern Christian County have put in the sweat equity to make sure it gets done.

With the help of a $19,989 Coover grant the Chadwick campus, instead of a hardscrabble space between school buildings, will now have a fully functional outdoor classroom and Ozark Mountain herb garden. With a little financial boost, students, volunteers and staffers from Lowe’s in nearby Ozark have turned a previously useless patch of gravel and grass into one of the most innovative classroom projects in southern Missouri.

With the additional help of a $5,000 Heroes Grant from Lowe’s–which included materials, plants, furnishings and expert advice–multi-tiered levels of decks and sitting space have been erected where previously there was limestone chat and scrub brush. Umbrellas, a shade awning and multiple access points make the space comfortable and useful for all students. (more…)

Philanthropic support to rebuild Joplin is growing through a coalition of private donors, regional community foundations, corporate gifts and grass-roots fundraising efforts using the CFO’s Joplin Recovery Fund.

Soon after Monday’s announcement that the CFO would open the recovery fund on behalf of its largest affiliate, the Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri, Inc., donors began expressing their faith in Joplin’s future with an estimated $250,000 in direct donations and commitments so far. The CFO is committing 100 percent of the donations for mid- to long-term recovery grants to non-profits working on the civic, economic, human services and educational needs created by Sunday’s historic storm.

While the immediate work in Joplin remains focused on emergency needs and search-and-rescue efforts, the Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri is starting to form a Joplin area leadership group that will take responsibility for developing recovery grantmaking strategies.

“My heart is still so sad, but today we’ve been able to start helping people recover, so that’s the good news,” said Michelle Ducre, the CFO’s staff associate for the Joplin-Carthage area.

The CFSWM also opened the Joplin Tornado First Response Fund this week at the request of the City of Joplin for shorter-term needs.

Some examples of the generosity and support that donors have announced include:

• The Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation, a long-time partnership between Commerce Trust and the CFO, quickly matched the CFO’s $10,000 donation to seed the Joplin Recovery Fund with a $10,000 donation.
• U.S. Bancorp donated $50,000 to the Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri, as part of its $100,000 commitment to Joplin’s relief and rebuilding efforts. U.S. Bancorp, which operates U.S. Bank locations across Missouri, also donated $25,000 to the Greater Ozarks Chapter of the American Red Cross and $25,000 to United Way.
• The City of West Plains, where the CFO has one of its two regional offices along with the Joplin-Carthage area, endorsed the Joplin Recovery Fund for its residents interested in helping its western Missouri neighbor rebuild.
• Regional community foundations, including the Tulsa Community Foundation, the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Southeast Kansas, are encouraging their interested donors to support the Joplin Recovery Fund.

Private donors from 25 states and Canada also have made contributions this week, some fueled by local connections and others moved by national media reports projecting Joplin’s resiliency and humanity in coping with nature’s fury. And several Joplin-area employers have opened  benevolence funds to assist their own employees who have lost family members, suffered injuries, or sustained major property losses.

Donations can be made online at: http://www.cfozarks.org/donate. Please note either “Joplin Recovery Fund” or “Joplin Tornado First-Response Fund” in the fund/program box. Checks can be sent to: Community Foundation of the Ozarks, P.O. Box 8960, Springfield, MO, 65801. All donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent allowed by the IRS.

For any questions about the Joplin Recovery Fund, please call the Community Foundation at (417) 864-6199 or e-mail: cfo@cfozarks.org.

The second annual Rural Schools Rendezvous in Thomasville, Mo., last week brought together some 150 educators, students, philanthropists and experts for a day of sharing ideas and inspiration for maintaining rural schools.

The CFO’s Rural Schools Partnership held the conference at the Thomasville Community Center in Oregon County, where CFO Executive Committee member Dusty Shaw hosted the group.

The day then featured a series of presentations and workshops facilitated by Margaret MacLean, Jereann King Johnson, and Robert Mahaffey of The Rural School and Community Trust in Washington, D.C.; Jim Beddow, Randy Parry, and Mike Knutson of the Rural Learning Center in Minor County, S.D.; Lavina Grandon of the Rural Community Alliance in Arkansas; and CFO’s own Carol Silvey, who led a lively discussion on building school foundations.

New members of the Ozarks Teacher Corps were introduced and the inaugural class was recognized. The  2011 Coover Place-Based Grant recipients were honored at the Rendezvous picnic under a big tent.  Eight schools received grants totaling $140,823 for projects that promote the Rural Schools Partnership’s mission of connecting schools and communities through the principles of place-based education.

The grants are made possible by the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation Place-Based Education Grantmaking Program of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks in partnership with Commerce Trust.

Here is a summary of this year’s grants:

• Leeton R-X: $20,000 for the School Based Enterprise Bulldog Express, which will expand the community grocery in a larger location and  add a coffee shop/deli.
• Chadwick: $19,989 for a project to study the edible and medicinal benefits of Ozark Mountain herbs and build an outdoor classroom.
• Sherwood-Cass: $20,000 for “The Sherwood Forest,” a campus Master Treescape and Beautification Plan and enhance the carbon-credit awareness and green operational strategy capacities of the students and community.
• Fairview – $19,534 for a water awareness project to train middle-school students about freshwater quality and mentor lower-elementary teachers to teach younger students. The project will culminate a community-wide “Fresh Water Awareness Festival.”
• Stockton: $16,700 for a “Tiger Community Pride”  project to build a pavilion, and a vegetable/flower garden, including  research on Missouri wildflowers and their benefits.
• St. James YEP – $20,000 to start Firehouse Coffee, a student community enegagement center in a 2,500-square-foot old firehouse that also will host summer concerts to generate revenue for the YEP fund.
• Glenwood:  $4,600 for ”Grow Our Strengths,” a project to build raised beds to grow produce to use in the school kitchen and donate to the community food pantry, along with learning to compost school kitchen waste.
• Dora:  $20,000 for ”Dora Digital Story Telling,” where students will complete a “digital story” based on a community inquiry project that analyzes an aspect of the Ozarks.