Community Foundation of the Ozarks

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks is offering a record number of scholarships that open today for applications from students across southern Missouri interested in pursuing advanced education opportunities.

This year’s scholarship awards and renewals, which are made possible by generous donors, are valued at nearly $925,000, up from about $815,000 awarded in the 2011 scholarship cycle. These represent more than 220 named scholarship funds, with many awarding multiple scholarships to students across southern Missouri.

Information about the scholarship opportunities is available at www.cfozarks.org/cfoscholarships, or students can contact their high-school counseling offices. Application deadlines vary, with the earliest due on March 1, 2012.

The CFO scholarships offer a wide range of opportunities for students interested in public or private colleges and universities, medical or nursing schools, vocational-technical education, and funds designated for students from specific high schools by alumni giving back to their communities.

Some examples of this year’s new scholarship funds include: (more…)

A scholarship for the “underdog” students  in Branson and Hollister.

A Springfield family’s desire to give back to the community that helped their business succeed.

A fund that recognizes an outstanding teacher each year in Ash Grove.

These are some of the examples of planned gifts that a group of estate-planning leaders shared during a recent breakfast at the CFO.

The CFO hosted members of its Professional Advisors Council to discuss how estate planners, attorneys and financial advisors can partner with the CFO to help clients achieve their charitable goals through thoughtful planning about their long-term intent.

Mitch Holmes, with Edward Jones in Branson, helped clients establish a scholarship fund that targets students with ACT scores under 28 and GPAs of 3.5 or lower.

“That’s going to give a whole new group of kids the opportunity to win a scholarship,” he said.

Attorney John Courtney described a scholarship fund benefiting Ash Grove students, which stipulates that one-quarter of its annual distribution be awarded to an outstanding teacher.

“If you think outside the box, you can do some innovative things with scholarship money,” he said.

Diane Homan, with Central Trust & Investment in Springfield, recounted a client who sold his business and wanted to support specific issues in the community that helped his business succeed.

“It helps our clients to give back and makes them feel that they are part of the community,” she said, of helping him create a charitable component in his estate planning.

Randy Saul, Director with BKD Wealth Advisors, LLC, said the CFO’s willingness to work with externally managed funds offers a comfort level to clients who have long-established relationships with their financial advisors. The advisors can still manage the funds, but direct the charitable giving through the CFO’s expertise.

“It’s a win-win for us,” he said. “The ease of a donor-advised fund vs. a private foundation saves a lot of time and expertise needed to set up a private foundation.”

The CFO’s fall newsletter is out, and features the Norton family’s story of loss and survival in the Joplin tornado. A scholarship fund has been established in memory of Will Norton, a member of the Joplin Class of 2011 graduating on that May day.

“He was just gone”

The Tornado’s Wrath Claimed Will Norton, But His Legacy Survives

As Mark Norton lay broken in a crowded, chaotic operating room, Dr. Rex Peterson leaned in close to tell him the morphine supply was depleted and he was going to experience more pain than he’d ever known as the surgeon prepared to re-set the bones protruding from his left leg.

But it hardly compared to the even more exquisite pain a week later when Pastor Aaron Brown had to lean in again at Mark’s hospital bedside in the pre-dawn hours to tell him his son Will’s body had been positively identified after a frantic week of friends, family, strangers and search teams looking for the popular Joplin teenager who vanished into the twister.

An aspiring director whose career was kickstarted with more than 2 million views of his prolific YouTube videos, Will Norton was headed to a prestigious film program at Chapman University near Disneyland. He’d traveled to 34 states and 15 countries, and was learning to fly. His tennis team went to state finals and he went to leadership programs like Boy’s State; he was just at one in Washington, D.C., when Bin Laden was killed and he joined the throngs outside of the White House.

“He was always just a great kid to be around. He made good choices, he never gave us a moment’s worry,” Mark says. “He was a good student. He volunteered his time. He made friends easily because he was real considerate.”

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