Jerry and Sharon Berkstresser Fund – Becky Berkstresser Brill established this family and community fund to honor her parents and help simplify her charitable giving. This is a component fund of the Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri.

Dignity Now Endowment Fund – This is a fund which support the long terms needs of Dignity Now. It is a component fund of the Community Foundation of Taney County and is a new Agency Partner in the social services category.

O’Day Family Mausoleum Maintenance Fund – John Baldwin O’Day has established this fund which will distribute to the City of Springfield for the public beautification and historic preservation of the O’Day Family Mausoleum located in Hazelwood Cemetery. Should the available to spend be more than the City of Springfield needs for this task, the remaining available amount will granted to Ozark Greenways for the maintenance and improvement of the greenway trail network in Springfield-Greene County.

Ozark Actors Theatre Endowment Fund – This fund will support the long term sustainability of the local theatre in Rolla, Mo. It is a component fund of the Meramec Regional Community Foundation, and is a new Agency Partner in the arts category.

Skyline R-II Youth Empowerment Fund – This fund will support youth programming. This is a component fund of the Douglas County Community Foundation.

The Youth Empowerment Project is designed to promote volunteerism, grantmaking, fundraising and education to get mostly high-school and some middle-school students involved in community-based philanthropy. The YEP program now includes chapters at 35 schools.

You can view photos from the conference, hosted at Drury University, at the YEP website, yepozarks.org, and check out individual chapter pages and brand-new group photos here (thanks for posing in the morning cold, kids).

To learn more about YEP, and how your school might start a chapter, contact Bridget Dierks by e-mail, or call (417) 864-6199.

Go to yepozarks.org. Click “Media” to view photos.

Click here to learn more about individual YEP chapters.

UPDATE: You can keep up with the Firehouse Coffee Shop’s progress on Facebook.

What a difference a year makes.

Twelve months ago, the city of St. James was in mourning. A tragic school bus accident last August, just up the road on I-44 in St. Louis, had killed a student and injured many more, and also took a bit of the town’s innocence.

With the accident as a backdrop, school began just a few short weeks later. For the first time the staff included Terrill Story, a former youth pastor who was a last-minute addition to the overburdened counseling staff. But as the school healed, Terrill saw in his position more than a temporary job – he saw a new way, with the help of a dedicated faculty and administration, to drastically improve students’ lives.

Over the course of the 2010-11 school year, Terrill went to work, establishing the school’s active Youth Empowerment Project chapter (he is currently the sponsor) and submitting an application for a 2011 Coover grant (click here for information and an application on the 2012 Coover program). The mission: to transform a dilapidated, abandoned city firehouse into a coffee shop that would not only raise funds for the YEP chapter’s local philanthropic efforts, but also give students and the community a safe, comfortable place to eat, study and gather.

(Click and watch Terrill Story explains what he hopes the coffee shop will accomplish for the students of St. James)

The project was one of eight selected to receive 2011 Coover grants, and was awarded to the chapter in May at the RSP’s annual get-together in Thomasville, Mo. Work began late that month, just days before school ended.

“I thought nothing short of a stick of dynamite would help the place,” says St. James High School Principal Keith McCarthy.

But all it really needed was an energetic tenant. The building is leased from the city of St. James, which agreed to rewire and bring the space up to code in exchange for a $5 monthly rent. (In fact, one St. James YEP member was so excited that she drove to city hall and plopped down the first month’s $5 from her own pocket.)

It’s taken a small army of students and endless hours from Terrill and his family, but the project is taking shape, and should open for business sometime in early September.

It will take a similar small army to keep the coffee shop – dubbed Firehouse Coffee Shop – staffed and operational. While students can’t be there during the day, Terrill says a number of groups have agreed to help out, including townspeople, home-school students and parents interested in getting involved, and members of the Missouri Options Program, run through the St. James Alternative School. These students spend half the day in studies, and the other half either in jobs or community service.

One of these students is Brandon Toebben, 18, who on a recent Tuesday was on hand to help Terrill sweep up the exterior of the coffeehouse before heading to practice with the St. James football team. Brandon is interested in a career in in the culinary field, and sees the kitchen at Firehouse Coffee Shop, which will service light meals including soups, salads and sandwiches, as a great step toward that goal. He also hopes to help further the hangout’s mission of keeping fellow students from getting into bad situations and making bad choices.

(Click to watch Brandon talk about how he hopes Firehouse Coffee Shop helps students.)

There are a few things still to do, though much of it is the city’s donated electrical work. Terrill keeps detailed “to-do” lists posted around the coffee shop, and even though the new school year has already started in St. James, he and the school’s art faculty and Art Club (who are responsible for much of the interior) are pulling long hours along with their students to get the project completed.

If early buzz is any indication, St. James is ready for Firehouse to open for good. From a practical standpoint, St. James currently doesn’t have a dedicated coffee house. And from a sentimental standpoint, many in St. James are excited to see the previously abandoned ex-firehouse turn into a vital part of the community once more. In homage, Firehouse Coffee Shop will feature donated firefighter gear, old photos of the station and trucks in action, and other odes to the history of the town and department.

(Click and watch Terrill talk about the community’s reaction to the renovations.)

Other tasks to complete include the exterior, which already includes a sensational mural bearing the coffee house’s name. Terrill hopes to partner with the Environmental Club to build a small “reflection garden” for students to remember the classmate they lost, and provide a spot for quiet thought.

But in the end, it’s about learning, tutoring and peer-to-peer connecting.

“I really want this to be a place for kids to go when home isn’t the best option,” says Terrill. The shop’s after school-to-6 p.m. hours (open to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday) should make that possible.

“This should be a place of continuity, a place to pay it forward and invest in something.”

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.

Springfield YEP students present a check to Parkview Green Team sponsor Stephanie Jacobs (front center).

Springfield YEP students recently presented grants to five youth-oriented projects in the community during their spring grant round.  Each project directly impacted student needs with a variety of types of projects receiving funds.  The projects funded are as follows:

Bailey High School, Physical Education Weight Lifting Program – This grant provides funding for Mr. Beaver’s physical education program’s special weight-lifting unit.  Students will travel during the spring fourth quarter to the Ward branch of the Ozarks Regional YMCA to participate in weight lifting programs.  $480

Bailey High School, Service Learning Memory Project – This grant provides funding to support a Memory Project service learning event in Ms. Price’s classroom.  Students will partner with children in Africa and participate in a portrait drawing project.  A showcase of the Bailey students’ art will be held after the project is complete. $225

The Kitchen, Inc., Rare Breed Youth Outreach Center – YEP students have provided this grant to support the Rare Breed Youth Outreach Center’s GED preparation and testing program.  Children who participate in the Rare Breed programs are often homeless youths who have dropped out of high school.  Funds will provide for the registration and sitting fees for students who have participated in the GED preparation classes at the Rare Breed.  This grant will pay for ten youth to take the GED.  $400

Holland Elementary School, Functional Skills Classroom – This grant provided funds for the purchase of a Smart Talk Interactive Language Station to be used by students with limited language skills.  This system will provide an independent work center for children in the functional skills classroom.  $300

Parkview High School, Green Team – Springfield YEP students have provided this grant in support of the Parkview High School Green Team’s Fassnight Creek stream cleanup project.  Parkview students will partner with nearby elementary schools to host a spring stream cleanup project at nearby Fassnight Creek.  Products purchased for this project will be reused in future stream cleanup events.  $225

The Monett Area Community Foundation Board of Directors hosted about 40 community members at a  first-time “Celebrate a Legacy” event Saturday night to learn more about the impact charitable giving has had on Monett.

Founded in 1998, the MACF now holds about $1.3 million in charitable assets in about 35 funds.

Representatives of Camp Barnabas, the YMCA, The Den, and RockOn set up displays to show the impact of charitable gifts for their groups. The Monett Youth Empowerment Project chapter told its story through a Powerpoint and video presentation outlining its youth grantmaking efforts and having students describe what participating in YEP has meant to them.

Two MACF founding members also described their experiences with charitable gifts and planned giving.

Rod Anderson said he established the Howard and Dorothy Anderson Education Assistance Fund to honor his “working middle class” parents who both graduated from Monett High School in 1939. He designated the endowed scholarship fund for non-traditional students who have to work their way through college.

Frank Compton told the story of how he and other MACF founders worked to transfer a portion of an estate left by EFCO and Clark Industries founder Tom Clark and his wife, Mary Dell, who died in a motorcycle crash in Europe. Instead of ending up in probate court, estate proceeds established the Tom and Mary Dell Clark Memorial Fund through the Community Foundation of the Ozarks. That became the impetus to set up the Monett Area Community Foundation as an affiliate of the CFO. The fund now supports the Clark Community Mental Health Center, which provides crisis assistance and treatment services for residents in Barry and Lawrence counties with mental illness, substance-abuse problems and developmental disabilities.

CFO President Brian Fogle said such legacies are important to fill the gaps created by decreased public funding for education and human services.

“A Community Foundation is just a means of helping gather local resources for local challenges,” Fogle said, noting last week’s announcement of the CFO’s grantmaking milestone. “People like you are the reason we’ve been able to give out $100 million over the past 38 years.”

MACF President Mark Nelson summed up the challenge to the community members to consider charitable giving as part of their family financial and estate planning.

“What do you want your footprint to look like?” he asked.

The Student Wellness Grants are made possible by the Ed and Virginia Heer Family Foundation Fund. Several of the grants were made to chapters of the Youth Empowerment Project, a CFO initiative to encourage youth philanthropy and community service. The recent YEP conference was profiled in the Nov. 12  “Making a Difference” segment on Springfield public radio station KSMU, 91.1 FM.

The grants were awarded to:

• Fair Grove High School Youth Empowerment Project: $1,300 to create informational markers for distance intervals and circuit training at a new walking track around school property.
• Purdy High School Spanish Club Youth Empowerment Project: $900 to expand its research on food sustainability, including visits to a large Farmer’s Market, like Springfield’s, natural food stores, and other areas of interest.
• Gainesville Schools’ Youth Empowerment Project: $1,500 for the YEP group to assume responsibility for the school’s weekend backpack program, which provides nutritious food for about 57 eligible students.
• Carl Junction High School Youth Empowerment Project: $1,500 to begin a weekend backpack program providing nutritious food to about 65 eligible students throughout the district.
• Hermann Elementary School: $1,500 for an “Art from the Heart” project combining nutrition education with printmaking skills using the vibrant colors of heart-healthy vegetables and fruits.
• Valle Catholic School in Ste. Genevieve: $625 to purchase pedometers for students participating in a morning walking program to track their target goal of 10,000 steps a day.
• Cuba All Aboard Learning Center: $1,275 to support the annual “Turkey Trot Fun Run” that serves as a primary fundraising effort to defray rates to parents participating in its day care and before- and after-school programs.

“We are eager to see the results of these grants to our Rural Schools Partnership and Youth Empowerment Project members who are using both creativity and community service to encourage healthy lifestyles and good nutrition,” said Julie Leeth, CFO executive vice president.

Johan Mostert, CFO Speaker Drury U from CF Ozarks on Vimeo.

Dr. Johan Mostert’s keynote address, which was given at the 2010 Youth Philanthropy Conference on October 14th, is available to watch online.  Dr. Mostert’s talk to Ozarks students focused on the importance of becoming social entrepreneurs by finding and addressing community needs in each small town. The conference drew together nearly 200 students and advisers involved in the CFO’s 31 Youth Empowerment Project chapters.

“Philanthropy is a love, it’s a commitment to humanity,” said Dr. Mostert, who was introduced by CFO President Brian Fogle.  “It is a sense of ‘I am here for the rest of the world.  I’m taking my life and I’m investing it to make it better for other people’.”

Dr. Mostert holds multiple graduate and terminal degrees and is currently a Professor of Community Psychology at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary.

“I want you challenge you to be social entrepreneurs,” Dr. Mostert said.  “Make a magnificent difference in the communities that you’re privileged to live in.”

The Monett YEP was one of the chapters that attended the annual conference at Drury University.

Nearly 200 students and advisors representing most of the 31 Youth Empowerment Project chapters across southern Missouri gathered for an annual conference at Drury University today, which featured inspirational words and ideas and the unveiling of the new YEP website.

The website - www.yepozarks.org – is now live, but development work on it continues as each YEP chapter will get more training to develop its own page and submit calendar items at a November webinar. In the meantime, its features include resources for students and advisors, photos of the chapters’ activities and basics like the tenets of YEP.

Johan Mostert, a professor of community psychology at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, gave the keynote remarks urging the YEP students to live the meaning of the word “philanthropy,” which translates from its Latin roots to essentially “loving humanity.”

“Love has to be put into action and that action is service,” said Dr. Mostert, a native of South Africa. “I want to challenge you to become social entrepreneurs and you’ll make a magnificent difference in your communities.”

A video of Dr. Mostert’s remarks will be posted soon on the new YEP website. Springfield Public Radio stationKSMU will air a report about the YEP as part of its “Making a Difference” series on Nov. 12.

CFO Executive Vice President Julie Leeth also encouraged the YEP students to consider applying for the upcoming Conco Community Arts and Student Wellness grants, which are due Friday, Oct. 29. Each program has $10,000 available for grants ranging from $500 to $1,500 for student-led arts and wellness projects.

During two sets of breakout sessions, the students from exchanged ideas on topics including fundraising, community service, soliciting grant applications and making grant selections. A number of creative fundraising ideas were discussed, ranging from wrestling in Gainesville to a middle-school prom in Seymour.

McAuley YEP students present a $1,400 check and supplies to Joplin Schools Angel Fund.

Joplin TV station KOAM aired a report about the McAuley High School Spring 2010 YEP check presentation during their May 26th broadcast.   The McAuley Youth Empowerment Project presented a $1,400 check to Joplin Public Schools during an assembly Wednesday with administration from both school systems present to participate in the event.  The students, along with YEP sponsor Jane Fethers, designated the funds to be given to the Joplin Public Schools Angel Fund.  The Angel fund provides emergency and basic needs for elementary students in Joplin.  In addition to the grant, McAuley students also presented items they had collected throughout the school year including toiletries, shoes, socks, and gently used clothing.

The McAuley YEP is part of a network of 30 YEPS throughout the Missouri Ozarks. Students work to positively impact the community through education, service, grantmaking, and fundraising.