Community Foundation of the Ozarks

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.