(Pictured left to right: Terrill Story, Ramona Rhinhart, YEP board members, and Community Foundation board members: Kelly Money, Errica Hartley, Lindsey Pantaleo, Jenna Davis, & Jon Hartley.)

Recently, the St. James Area Community Foundation granted $2,000 to the St. James Youth Empowerment Program (YEP) to help them with their Firehouse Coffee Shop. St. James YEP’s Firehouse Coffee Shop has emerged from a place-based grant from the Rural School Partnership’s Coover grants program.

The partnership between the local community foundation and the school-centered YEP program is exactly the kind of collaboration that is needed to strengthen school and community in small towns.  Congratulations to everyone in St. James for this good work.

Also in the last few weeks, the St. James Area CF threw a New Year’s Eve Gala at Matt’s Steakhouse, where they raised more than $10,000, as posted on their Facebook page.

If you would like to learn more about the Firehouse Coffee Shop project, go to the St. James YEP link at http://yep.groupspot.net/St.-James/Default.aspx.

Valle Athletic Fund – The Valle Schools Foundation established this fund to support the athletic programs of the school.

Valle Music and Arts Fund – The Valle Schools Foundation established this fund to support the music and arts program.

Valle Technology Fund – The Valle Schools Foundation established this fund to support the technology needs of the schools.

Conway Schools Curtain Fund – The Conway School Foundation established this fund to help purchase new stage curtains for the school.

Conway Schools Uniform Fund - The Conway School Foundation established this fund to help purchase uniforms for the Conway Schools.

Howell Valley School Foundation Endowment Fund – The Howell Valley School Foundation established this endowed fund to support the long term sustainability of the projects and programs of the Howell Valley School District. This is a component fund of the Community Foundation of West Plains.

Howell Valley School Foundation Fund – The Howell Valley School Foundation established this fund to support the immediate needs of the Howell Valley School District. This is a component fund of the Community Foundation of West Plains.

Click here to see a full list of RSP partners and participating schools. Contact Julie Leeth (417-864-6199) with questions or for more information.

School-centered philanthropy in Conway received a tremendous boost in 2010 with the establishment of the Billy Coyle Leadership Fund.  Established by donor Bill Coyle, this fund provides an outstanding Conway student with a leadership award.  The student must demonstrate traits and qualities of a leader or have been involved in laboratory opportunities for leadership.  Funded with a significant contribution, the Coyle fund showed the potential for a more formal school foundation serving Conway students and teachers.

“This would not have happened without the philanthropic leadership of Bill Coyle and the administrative guidance of Conway superintendent Chris Berger,” reports Community Foundation of the Ozarks senior associate for advancement Carol Silvey.  Silvey, who manages and works out of CFO’s West Plains office, credits Dr. Berger with having a real appreciation for the role of philanthropy in rural schools.  “Chris truly gets it,” she said. “His positive attitude really carries over into the community.”

Local school advocate Joe Wissbalm serves as president of the Conway School Foundation.

Conway’s growing school foundation represents the 24th new school foundation/partnership established since the inception of CFO’s Rural School Partnership.  With a major focus on school-centered asset development, the Rural Schools Partnership has the resources and expertise to assist any rural Ozarks school district in the establishment and development of a local school foundation.  If you would like more information on how to start a school foundation in your community, please contact Carol Silvey (417-234-2262) or Julie Leeth (417-864-6199).

The Fugate Family presents the Willow Springs School Foundation with an endowed scholarship to benefit Willow Springs students. Front: Board member Eric Montgomery, school superintendent Dr. Derrick Hutsell, and donors Rita and Royce Fugate. Back: School Foundation president Matt James, board member Valerie Bailey, board member Becky Cash, board member Dr. Laurie Clarkston, and high school counselor Sharon Petrus.

The Willow Springs School Foundation hosted its first meeting on Monday, April 25th and celebrated an exciting start.  The School Foundation, thanks to Royce and Rita Fugate, can count the Margaret Eidson Fugate Class of 1931 Scholarship Fund as their first endowed scholarship created to support graduating seniors of Willow Springs High School.

The Fugate family decided to establish an endowment fund in honor or Royce Fugate’s mother, Margaret Eidson Fugate, who was a Willow Springs High School graduate in 1931.

“We wanted to honor my mother on the 80^th anniversary of her high school graduation,” Mr. Fugate said.

Preference for this scholarship will be given to an elementary or secondary education major with secondary preference to an engineering major.  The 2011 recipient, who will be selected in the coming weeks, will receive the first $500 scholarship.

The Willow Springs School Foundation will provide donors like the Fugate family with a unique opportunity to establish endowed scholarship funds.  However, this is certainly not the only way to support Willow Springs students through the School Foundation.  Donors may help the school reach financial goals in any project or area of interest by making gifts to the school foundation’s short term and long term endowment funds.

“This gives us an opportunity to help donors have ways to give in what interests them,” School Superintendent Dr. Derrick Hutsell said.  “We have this great opportunity, which we can expand upon.”

“It is wonderful the Fugates will allow us to show the importance of giving by example, and we are thankful for their meaningful gift,” CFO staff member Carol Silvey said. “The Willow Springs School Foundation will do whatever they can to improve the Willow Springs school, and the Willow Springs Community Foundation and the Community Foundation of the Ozarks are excited to partner with them.”

The Dr. O.E. and Eloise H. Sloan Memorial Scholarship was established with a $50,000 endowment left to the Greenfield Education Foundation upon Mrs. Sloan’s death in January at the age of 103.

The first scholarship will be awarded in spring 2012. It is designated for a Greenfield High School senior who will graduate in the top 25 percent of the class and plans to attend a two- or four-year college or university in Missouri.

Dr. Sloan was a dentist who practiced in Tulsa, Okla., until he retired in 1953. He and Mrs. Sloan returned to Greenfield, where she had graduated from high school, and they purchased a farm between Greenfield and Lockwood. Dr. Sloan died in 1975.

“We’re very grateful for this,” said Bob Jackson, a member of the Greenfield Education Foundation Board of Directors along with Bob Blakemore and Brenda Adams. “She was very supportive of the Greenfield community and she was very supportive of the school system.”

Jackson said the Foundation was not aware that Mrs. Sloan had made a planned gift to create the scholarship fund. He said she also created a dental scholarship at the University of Missouri-Kansas City to honor Dr. Sloan’s work and left proceeds from the sale of their farm to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

The fund was established through the Community Foundation of the Ozarks as a component of the Greenfield Education Foundation, which is a CFO agency partner and a member of the CFO’s Rural Schools Partnership.

Laverta Arnhart Jones was honored by her son Bill Jones with a scholarship in her name.

The new $1.4 million Laverta Arnhart Jones Scholarship Fund will offer five $5,000 renewable scholarships this year and will benefit generations of students to come, thanks to the generosity of Lawrence County native Bill Jones who named the fund in his mother’s honor.

These scholarships administered by the Community Foundation of the Ozarks are open to students at any Lawrence County High School, as well as students with GED or home-schooling equivalencies, who meet academic and financial eligibility criteria. More information is available on the CFO website at www.cfozarks.org/scholarships<http://www.cfozarks.org/scholarships> or by contacting high school counselors.

The Jones Scholarship Fund was established in a bequest by Mr. Jones, who was 79 when he died in December 2009, through the Aurora Area Community Foundation, an affiliate of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks.

Mr. Jones came from a family of tenant sharecroppers who eventually inherited other family property  between Aurora and Marionville. He graduated from Marionville High School in 1945 and received his bachelor’s degree from Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis, family members said.

He spent his career in St. Louis, where he worked as a federal bank examiner and civilian computer programmer for the U.S. Army. He also spent so many years volunteering at Barnes Jewish Hospital that he eventually joined the computer staff. Never married, he retired back to his family’s homestead in the late 1980s where he kept cows and devoted a lot of time to his passion for genealogy, said his nephew Jim Jones, who lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., and serves as trustee for his uncle’s estate. Jim Jones said his late father, James Jones, Sr., was his uncle’s closest confidant after he returned to Aurora.

“Uncle Bill was a diligent saver and incredibly frugal,” Jim Jones said, describing him as a very private person whom no one would have predicted to leave such a sizeable estate or knew he had designated half of it for the scholarship fund.

Jim Jones said his uncle amassed most of his wealth by purchasing a U.S. Savings Bond with each paycheck. He never invested in the stock market; he put other savings into certificates of deposit and money-market accounts.

“There was a strong work ethic, strong character, and strong values built into all of the kids,” Jim Jones said. “You could see his mentality coming out of the depression after all the stock market failures. He lived most of his life in the aftermath of the depression. As people were encouraged after the war, he started buying U.S. Savings Bonds and he just never stopped.”

The Jones Scholarship Fund is among a record 233 named scholarships being offered through the Community Foundation in 2011 for students across southern Missouri, thanks to the generosity of many donors. This year’s scholarship awards and renewals are valued at nearly $760,000, up from about $600,000 in 2010.

“The Jones Scholarship is an outstanding example of what targeted planned giving can mean to our rural students,” CFO President Brian Fogle said. “We must all do everything we can to promote planned giving through our school foundations and rural affiliate community foundations.  This kind of work is an essential economic development tool in rural places.”

If you would like for Community Foundation of the Ozarks staff members to come to your town or school and discuss developing a planned giving program, please contact Julie Leeth (417-864-6199) or Carol Silvey (417-234-3362).

During the first six months of the  fiscal year, a total of 139 new funds have been established at the Community Foundation of the Ozarks. That’s quite a pace, considering a record number of 231 new funds were established during the full 2010 fiscal year.  Of these new funds 47 were established in support of rural schools.   CFO works with nearly 100 rural schools and school foundations to build endowments and assist with capacity building and other services.  Since the establishment of the Rural Schools Partnership, 150 new funds have been established by or in support of rural Ozarks schools.

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.  Many new Rural Schools Partners have established scholarships at the Community Foundation and are enjoying the helpful scholarship services we offer.

For more information about establishing funds at the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, please contact Winter Skelton, Development Operations Officer, (417) 864-6199.

Cassville High School students have a new scholarship opportunity, thanks to a new  fund established in honor of Ray and Wilma Skelton.  The Skelton family established the Ray and Wilma Skelton Legacy Scholarship in honor of their parents who raised 10 children who graduated from Cassville High School. Wilma Skelton was a CHS graduate as well, and Ray Skelton served on the school board for three years in the 1970s.

The first $1,000 scholarship will be awarded in spring 2011 with preference to students attending the University of Missouri-Columbia; financial need, leadership and community service also will be taken into consideration. Interested students can contact their CHS counselor after Feb. 1 for more information.

Education was a priority for Mr. and Mrs. Skelton who realized their goal of all 10 of their children graduating from college. Nine of the Skelton children received a total of 12 bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Missouri with support from scholarships, part-time and summer jobs, while the 10^th attended St. Luke’s School of Nursing in Kansas City.

The Skelton children – Wendell, Lowell, Maurice, Beverly, Judy, Carolyn, Lona, Lou, Keith and Brenda – believed a scholarship named for their late parents was the best way to honor the support and encouragement they gave their children to pursue higher education.

The Hartville R-II School District established The Hartville Teacher’s Support Fund so that each teacher will have first day of school classroom funding. Hartville is a new Agency Partner in the education category.

The newly formed Hartville School Foundation established a fund to support the programs and projects of the Hartville R-II School District. The Foundation also becomes a new Agency Partner in education.

The Reeds Spring R-IV School District and School Foundation have established the Reeds Spring Youth Empowerment Project Fund to support charitable projects and programs involving and benefitting youth.  Reeds Spring becomes the 31st Youth Empowerment Project to join the YEP of the Ozarks network.