Community Foundation of the Ozarks

Lilly Endowment Inc. has awarded a $1.5 million grant to the Joplin Recovery Fund, administered by the Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri, Inc., and the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, to promote recovery efforts following the May 22 tornado.

Created in 1937, the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment concentrates most of its grantmaking in its home state of Indiana, but it also has a long history of supporting relief efforts after other natural disasters.

“Watching the devastation wrought by the May 22 tornado that struck Joplin was wrenching and saddening,” said N. Clay Robbins, president of the Endowment. “The scars may never disappear, but homes can be rebuilt and quality of life restored. The Endowment is pleased to be able to help the community foundation in these efforts.”

The CFO, and its largest affiliate, the Joplin-based Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri, Inc., created the Joplin Recovery Fund on May 23 to focus on mid- to long-term recovery  through grantmaking to non-profit agencies, particularly in areas where philanthropy can address needs not covered through government funding or private resources.

The Lilly Endowment funds will initially be applied to an upcoming grant cycle that will focus specifically on developing affordable housing to help more tornado survivors return to permanent homes, CFSWMO Board President Lisa Knutzen said.

Full details of this grant cycle, including the total amount available, eligibility guidelines and application process, will be announced in January. (more…)

CFO affiliates and their local food programs completed the Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge II this fall by raising $125,000 to match an equivalent challenge grant from the Walmart State Giving Foundation to Ozarks Food Harvest.

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 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.