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.

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 2011 conference for the CFO’s affiliate foundations offered a variety of topics and information for more than 60 presidents and board members who came to Springfield last week.

CFO President Brian Fogle offered a perspective on rural community development aimed at reinforcing the affiliates’ roles as leaders and community builders.

Three breakout sessions on board development, fund development and marketing/communications were designed to share practical ideas and goals for the key topics identified at last conference when the affiliates focused on strategic planning.

A lunchtime panel discussion highlighted successful event planning and fundraising ideas, including tips on making the events both safe and successful.

The CFO’s Carol Silvey continued the “friendraising” training she began during the fall regional meetings with affiliates. And Brian Fogle wrapped up the conference by celebrating the CFO’s recent milestone of $100 million in grantmaking and distributions back to our communities. He also congratulated four affiliates that have recently achieved the $1 million milestone in assets – the Aurora Area Community Foundation, the Finley River Community Foundation, the Lockwood Community Foundation, and the West Plains Community Foundation.

Getting education majors out of college classrooms and into schools and getting students out of schools and into their communities can give rural educators an advantage over their urban counterparts.

That’s one of the principles that underscore Missouri State University’s new Rural Education Center announced recently at the West Plains campus where the program will start by serving 34 school districts in its seven-county region.

The program, developed in concert with the place-based philosophy of the CFO’s Rural Schools Partnership and approved by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, will offer professional development for rural educators and administrators. It also will focus on resources and hands-on classroom experience for would-be teachers – both of which will benefit rural students in some of the most impoverished counties in the United States.

“This is going to be a collaborative hub for our Ozarks Teacher Corps’ model to recruit, prepare and retain teachers,” said CFO Senior Fellow Gary Funk, who announced that the Rural Schools Partnership is providing a $5,000 start-up grant to market and promote the Rural Education Center.  “We are doing things here that are not being done anywhere else in the country. We all look forward to working with everyone in the future.”

The program will be coordinated by Dr. Don Hamby, an instructor at MSU-WP, who has an intrinsic commitment to rural education as a native of Dora, a town of about 1,000 in Ozark County.

“Our kids deserve a world-class education,” Hamby said. “Location shouldn’t be a detriment.”

Hartville Schools, which is in the region served by the Rural Education Center, provided on-site training for the fall meeting of the Ozarks Teacher Corps. At the MSU announcement, Hamby cited its Superindentent, Dr. Sharon Hayden, for her efforts  to  maximize resources in a small, rural district.

“The creation of a Rural Education Center will have a profound effect on the educators in rural Missouri,” Hayden said. “I look forward to the resources, inspiration, and opportunities to serve the unique needs of school professionals in Missouri’s rural areas.”

More scholarships, technology improvements, and dual-credit tuition assistance will be available to students and educators in Hermann, West Plains, and Willard as the three latest school districts to celebrate their successful efforts in the Cooper Challenge grants for educational endowments.

The CFO awarded $15,000 to Hermann Schools and the Community Foundation of the Hermann Area, Inc., for the CF Dual Credit Scholarship Fund endowment, which offers tuition assistance for students taking college-level classes that count for both high-school and college credit.

The Hermann area raised $43,071 for a total of $58,071 to complete the Harry Cooper Supply Company Campaign Phase II Challenge for members of the CFO’s Rural Schools Partnership during 2010.

“We are so pleased to receive the Cooper Challenge Grant,” said Dr. Chris Neale, Hermann Superintendent and President of the Community Foundation of the Hermann Area, Inc.

The Willard community celebrated its $11,000 Cooper Challenge Grant on center court during the halftime of the Willard vs. Republic basketball game on Feb. 15.

The Willard Children’s Charitable Foundation and Willard schools raised $22,314 for a total of $33,314 applied to the Willard Educational Endowment Fund, which is designated for scholarships for Willard graduates and grants to the Willard School District for technology infrastructure to enhance educational performance.

“The WCCF Board of Trustees would like to thank the Community Foundation of the Ozarks for their continuing assistance, the Cooper family for their tremendous generosity, and our fantastic community for your remarkable support in the establishment of this new $33,000 endowed fund to support the children of our community,” WCCF President Danette Proctor said.

The $5,000 Cooper Challenge Grant for West Plains, along with $10,000 raised by the West Plains R-7 Educational Foundation, will go into the endowment fund and board members are still determining their distribution plans.

“We certainly appreciate the Cooper family for this match,” said John Richards, president of the West Plains R-7 Educational Foundation. “The school has a lot of needs and we’re going to use it to the best of our ability to help as many students as possible.”

A total of 26 southern Missouri rural schools participated in the year-long challenge grant opportunity, which raised nearly $1 million from generous donors and the Harry Cooper Supply Company to build long-term sustainability for these districts. The districts are: Alton, Aurora, Ava, Bolivar, Bradleyville, Cassville, Dallas County, Dora, Eminence, Fair Grove, Fairview, Gainesville, Hermann, Hollister, Houston, Lockwood, Logan-Rogersville, Monett, Nixa, Reeds Spring, Seymour, Valle, Warsaw, Weaubleau, Willard and West Plains.

The largest number of new funds were established by agency partners, the schools and non-profit groups the CFO works with to build endowments and assist with capacity building and other services. We welcomed 81 new agency partner funds during that six-month period, bringing the total number associated with the CFO to 378. A number of those new funds are for members of our Rural Schools Partnership.

We’re also continuing to see growth in our scholarship programs, with 20 new scholarship funds established from July through December. We’ll be posting more information in early February on the new scholarship opportunities available for Ozarks students through the generosity of these donors who put a priority on making higher education accessible for all students.

The new funds also include seven Giving Circles to support interests ranging from heart health in West Plains to helping neighbors in need through the Finley River Community Foundation. Giving Circles are a new type of fund the CFO is emphasizing to encourage groups of people bonded by shared interests to support their charitable passions.

For more information about our CFO funds, please contact Winter Skelton, Director of Donor Services, (417) 864-6199.

The competitive grants, awarded by the Rural Schools Partnership, are made possible by Conco Companies.

This year’s grants were awarded to:

• Ozark East Elementary School: $1,500 to create a visual and performing arts event for the school’s 2010-11 cultural focus on Australia and New Zealand.
• Fordland R-III Photography Club: $1,000 for equipment and supplies to expand the elementary and middle-school students’ community exhibits in area galleries, libraries and businesses.
• Norwood High School Youth Empowerment Project: $1,500 to create murals in the multi-purpose gym and school hallways and do a community service project painting the basement of the Wright County Children’s Home.
• Richards R-V School in West Plains: $1,500 to support the band of sixth- through eighth-grade students with instruments, music, supplies and clothing.
• Clinton High School: $1,432 for a project to add “CHS” in school colors using painted rocks along the drive outside of the new high school building.

“This is a strong group of projects that take student-produced art into their communities,” CFO Executive Vice President Julie Leeth said. “We’re eager to see the results.”

We want to congratulate our colleague Carol Silvey for being honored with one of the 2010 Missourian Awards in Jefferson City last weekend.

Carol  is the Senior Associate for Advancement in West Plains, representing the Community Foundation of the Ozarks in south-central Missouri.

She was one of 14 recipients from around the state who were honored at the Capitol Plaza banquet on Saturday, Oct. 2. She was cited for her long and distinguished career at Missouri State University in West Plains, where she worked for 37 years before joining the CFO.

Carol also is involved in a number of civic and volunteer activities and has received a host of other awards, including MSU-West Plains’ inaugural Distinguished Faculty/Staff Award.

At a recent Ozarks Food Harvest Mobile Pantry in Joplin, 150 people received eggs, cheese, meat, bread, cereal, Gatorade, and snack foods to feed their families

CFO affiliates raised $105,000 and received $100,000 in matching funds from the Walmart State Foundation to fight chronic hunger in their communities.

A total of 19 affiliates successfully completed the Challenge Grant, which is being channeled primarily through the Ozarks Food Harvest, which has a 28-county service area that largely mirrors the CFO’s region.

The CFO affiliates that completed the Hunger Challenge are: Aurora, Bolivar, Cassville, DACO (Dade County), Dallas County, El Dorado Springs, Finley River (Ozark area), Houston, Jacks Fork, Southwest Missouri (Carthage-Joplin area), Marshfield, Nixa, Oregon County, Seymour, Stockton, Table Rock Lake, Taney County, and West Plains.

The Wal-Mart State Foundation State Giving Program selected the Ozarks Food Harvest for its challenge grant program last year, which began in response to the 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.

For more information, see the full  Hunger Challenge news release .

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson leads the ribbon cutting of the new Ozarks Medical Center emergency department in West Plains.

The dedication of a new 16-bed emergency department at the Ozarks Medical Center in West Plains also represents the first project completed under the CFO’s new Mission-Related Investment program focusing on the “double-bottom line” of investing in our own communities.

The facility, which will open for patients at 7 a.m., Tuesday, July 20, offers improvements such as individual rooms for patient privacy that surround a nurse’s station with state-of-the-art patient tracking. Each patient room also has its own cardiac-monitoring system, access to portable imaging equipment, and EKG monitoring capabilities to speed up response time for potential cardiac patients. The previous facility had one EKG system that was shared among the treatment rooms and some of its 12 treatment rooms were separated only by curtains, which gave patients less privacy.

Two of the rooms are larger for major trauma cases and another room is equipped as a haz-mat facility if decontamination is necessary. Two of the rooms also are designed as “negative pressure” spaces for infectious patients where the contaminated air is prevented from reaching other parts of the hospital.

Construction of the new emergency room began more than five years ago. The shell of the building was completed in 2005, but challenging economic conditions and access to financial markets halted construction. In 2009, the CFO made its first mission-related investment – a $1 million low-interest loan. The hospital also received a $500,000 federal grant and the Ozarks Medical Center Foundation has raised $2 million toward its $3 million capital-campaign goal.

Construction resumed last August; the Sunday, July 18, dedication took place two months ahead of the estimated completion date. OMC President and CEO David Zechman noted with pride that 87 percent of the contractors for the project were from the West Plains area.

CFO Board member Dusty Shaw, also on the OMC Foundation Board, recognized the CFO’s role during his remarks at the dedication ceremony. New CFO Board Chairman David Pointer also was recognized as the hospital’s legal counsel.

The goal of the Mission-Related Investment initiative is to invest up to 2 percent of the CFO’s assets for low-interest loans for community needs when conventional financing options are not available.