Category: Grants Making a Difference

Donors are the heart of the Community Foundation. We appreciate the many ways you support our mission every day! Here are how some donors make a difference in their communities: 1 Making positive changes The YMCA of the Fox Cities is extremely grateful to have convened more than 200 local educators recently for a powerful […]

Five years after its establishment, the Fox Valley Memory Project has made a difference in the options available for people suffering memory loss and their caretakers, and also in how the community accepts them. That’s the short version of how concern about people experiencing memory loss has heightened, as outlined by Beth Belmore, who chairs […]

We’re by no means going to challenge any major metropolitan newspapers anytime soon, but subscriptions to The Loop have been growing steadily since we added it to our website in May of 2016. We reached a milestone recently when Julie Swiecichowski became subscriber number 500. Julie is the administrative assistant at the Neenah-Menasha YMCA. She […]

The joyfully decorated presents soon will surround your tree, to be followed by wall-to-wall scraps of torn giftwrap and smiling faces of children, young and old. Here at the Community Foundation, we have been able to give and receive many great gifts. But our presents are delivered throughout the year as our donors show their […]

Fox Valley Technical College had 837 students sign on for its promise of a free education by the Dec. 15 deadline, putting it well on its way to the 3,000 Promise Scholars the school hopes to have by 2023. Under the FVTC Promise scholarship program, every eligible incoming high school student in the Fox Valley Technical […]

Future philanthropists: (Back Row) Ella, 13; Sam, 15; Jack, 12; (front row) Graden, 6; Calvin, 1; Norah, 4; Lily, 4 When Gary Gunderson and his wife Judy wanted to help their grandchildren create a legacy of giving, Gary decided to look back a generation first. “My father loved children and loved the Fox Valley. He […]

Mary Lamers Grist passed away in August. She was part of the Community Foundation’s Himebaugh Legacy Circle, recognizing those who have made future plans for their favorite charitable causes through a bequest or similar deferred gift to the Foundation. For 91 years, Mary Lamers Grist poured her love for making an impact into the Fox […]

Kylie Sweere has a million-dollar smile. The 2015 Hilbert High School graduate went on to the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh to study English and marketing, with help from a $3,000 scholarship from the Violet and Ruben Laack Memorial Scholarship Fund. The scholarship is a memorial to the late Violet and Ruben Laack. They both knew […]

Lynn McLaughlin, founder of DandAlliance, LLC, has been through multiple grant interviews, but she says one with Girl-Powered Giving program participants was the one of the most in-depth. “The girls were all engaged and asking questions,” McLaughlin says. “It was wonderful to see what we were doing resonated with them.” Offered through the Women’s Fund […]

Some of the most gorgeous bodies of water can be found right here in the Badger state. Wisconsin is home to 84,000 miles of rivers, 15,000 lakes and millions of wetland acres. Now getting a birds-eye view is as easy as finding your television remote. The Francis A. and Georgia F. Ariens Fund is sponsoring […]

By Cathie Tierney, president and CEO, Community First Credit Union One of the most exciting things that happened to me as chairman of the board for the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region was when David and Rita Nelson’s estate gift was made totaling more than $100 million. That gift is pretty spectacular—as is […]

A measurable achievement gap between black students and the rest of the Fox Cities’ student population is about to encounter a shining STAR — Students on Target to Achieve Results, a new program of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Fox Valley and its partner school districts and colleges. STAR — implemented in February […]