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With support from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, this series introduces you to people in the Ozarks who through organizing and participating in charitable giving, are making their communities better. I'm Mike Smith, and on this edition of Making a Difference, we travel to Crane, in Stone County, where the Table Rock Lake Community Foundation board of directors is holding its January meeting.
In reading the minutes from the November meeting, TRLCF board chairman Jim Riddle reminds other members of the board's commitment to participate in "The Harry Cooper Supply Company Campaign for the Ozarks". Also known as "The Cooper Challenge", the Harry Cooper Supply Company will make available up to $25,000 in matching grant funds to any and all of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks affiliates whose board members personally contribute time effort and money in raising the needed dollars. The Harry Cooper Supply Company has, in effect, committed nearly one million dollars to the fund as 37 of 40 CFO regional affiliates have signed on to participate in "The Cooper Challenge".
A formal announcement about the Cooper Challenge is expected soon, but information provided by the CFO to KSMU suggests the dollar for dollar challenge grant is "Part of an overall effort to enhance community grant making endowments, establish administrative and operations endowments, and promote appropriate and best practices by CFO boards of directors".
The Table Rock Lake Community Foundation was formed in March 2004, and now has assets totaling over 2.7 million dollars. The group has distributed close to a half million dollars in grants over the last 4 years.
Table Rock Lake Community Foundation board member Nita Jane Ayres says she's excited about the Cooper Challenge. In her praise for the Harry Cooper family and the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, she says working to support the initiative will "give them (the board) an opportunity to learn how easy it is to ask people for dollars whenever we feel so good about the way we grant those dollars".
Glenn Phillips feels pretty good about the way the Table Rock Lake Community Foundation distributes those dollars. Phillips is the president of the Shell Knob Senior Center Corporation, a recipient of Community Grant dollars from the TRLCF. He says the TRLF and the CFO are "part of the fabric that keeps communities together. They take these aspirations and these dreams and these wants, and then translate them into funding. Then the people who want to make things happen will make things happen".
At 4:30 this afternoon on KSMU when Making a Difference continues, we'll hear more about the Table Rock Lake Community Foundation and its support for the citizens of Stone and Eastern Barry County. This series is available at www.ksmu.org Information about the Community Foundation of the Ozarks is available at www.cfozarks.org For KSMU, I'm Mike Smith.
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