Month: May 2018

A Community Foundation grant helped the Kurt Stein School of Music in Neenah get started in a partnership with YouthGo to give disadvantaged youth the chance to learn a musical instrument, but more instruments were needed. That was until a nonprofit run by a 19-year-old came to play. The nonprofit music school offered to give lessons in guitar, […]

Hi there! My name is Alyssa Sachs and I am excited to be a part of the Community Foundation’s team as a summer intern. I am a senior at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse where I am majoring in Organizational and Professional Communication and double minoring in Spanish and Photography. This past school year […]

Each “largest” gift comes with an element of surprise and awe. The May 1 announcement of David L. and Rita E. Nelson leaving the largest gift in the history of the Community Foundation — more than $100 million — to their donor advised fund seems like a gift that could never be matched. That’s the way […]

By Carolyn Desrosiers Community Engagement Manager Had you been at the Community Foundation office last Friday afternoon, you would have heard a bit of commotion as we welcomed a group of 10 elected officials from Haiti. Our normally quiet reception area was filled with the lilting sounds of Haitian Creole, one of Haiti’s two main […]

The Women’s Fund for the Fox Valley Region, in partnership with the Community Foundation,  is encouraging teens to do something charitable and is helping them figure out what their “thing” is. Up to 16 Fox Cities students from grades 8-10 will explore a range of charities for Do Something Day on June 12, 8 a.m. to […]

When the latest chapter in the story of the JumpStart program’s Garage for Good was written May 13, it was a surprise ending for only three people — the staff of the nonprofit automotive repair garage that benefits domestic abuse survivors working with Harbor House Domestic Abuse Programs in Appleton and the Christine Ann Domestic […]

The appearance by best-selling author Richard Louv at the grand opening of the new Bubolz Nature Preserve nature center building was not the only Earth Day Event backed by a Community Foundation grant. At the Sustainable Development Institute on the campus of the College of the Menominee Nation, more than 300 young people learned nature […]

By Robert Waugus Salvation Army of the Fox Cities The Salvation Army of the Fox Cities held a civic dinner May 10th to recognize employees, community volunteers and community supporters on the eve of National Salvation Army Week. Included in the honors were the donors of the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region. Since […]

By Curt Detjen President and CEO I have some important Community Foundation staff and strategic direction updates to share with you. Marti Hemwall, Vice President Community Engagement, has announced her retirement date of July 31, 2018, after working more than 10 years at the Community Foundation. We greatly appreciate Marti’s years of dedicated leadership and her […]

When the Village of Little Chute and City of Kaukauna proposed an 1,100-foot pedestrian and bicycle bridge connecting the two communities across the Fox River, even with money coming from Outagamie County and both municipalities, the $2.5 million project was going to require more than $1 million from grants and donations. That challenge got a […]

Of the eight grants awarded from the new David L. and Rita E. Nelson Family Fund within the Community Foundation, the largest was most clearly something David would have supported. The Community Foundation announced Tuesday that it had received an estate gift of more than $100 million to create a donor advised fund that will benefit causes important […]

There were some jaws figuratively bouncing off the ground at the Grignon Mansion in Kaukauna Tuesday when the Community Foundation announced it had received an estate gift of more than $100 million to create a donor advised fund that will benefit causes important to the late David and Rita Nelson and their family, primarily in […]