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Farmers Bank commits $25,000 to ACCF community grants
By Jim Brewer. Loudonville Times Editor. May 14,2013
On Thursday, Ken Gosche, president of Farmers and Savings Bank of Loudonville, Perrysville and Ashland, presented an oversized pledge document that visually committed $25,000 during the next five years to James Cutright, executive director and CEO of Ashland County Community Foundation.
The pledge, which included a $5,000 first-year payment on the commitment, is directed to ACCF’s Community Grants Program.
As explained by Cutright, “the community grants fund provides grants to worthy nonprofit organizations in Ashland County. Among the recently awarded grants in the Mohican area are relocation of the WZLP Radio tower, support to the Perrysville Economic Development group, roofing for the Mohican Historical Society’s Central Park Log Cabin roofing project, a contribution toward the L-P Alumni Association’s effort to erect a statue in memory of Charles F. Kettering in Central Park, and assistance to the Community Help Mission.”
Cutright added, “We at the Foundation are very pleased with the leadership Farmers Bank has shown among financial institutions in Ashland County in supporting our grants program.” Cutright also noted that Farmers Bank was a strong supporter of the Foundation’s “Footprints in Stone” effort to provide operations funds for ACCF.
In the most recent cycle of community grants, Cutright said “28 different non-profit organizations applied for support. The Farmers Bank funds will be pooled with other contributions to support these grants. We are very pleased with the ongoing support of Farmers Bank through the 18 years of existence of the ACCF.”
In addition to Farmers Bank, there are a couple of long-standing organizational funds from local organizations established with ACCF, the Loudonville Youth Association’s Martin T. Green Memorial Fund and Loudonville Public Library’s Living Legacy Foundation.
Ashland County Community Foundation recognizes area youth for charitable contributions, philanthropy
By Missy Loar T-G Staff Writer. Published: May 10, 2013 4:00AM..
Philanthropy means "to look beyond yourself" and "freedom from selfishness." James M. Cutright, executive director, said that is how Ashland County Community Foundation defines philanthropy as he concluded the 2013 Kids Who Care annual awards recognition ceremony Thursday at Mozelle Hall.
"It's something that's not easy for adults to embrace sometimes and even more noteworthy when we see young people in our area doing the right thing, the unselfish thing," Cutright said. "When we see a group of kids who care like these kids do, it makes us very hopeful at the leadership being displayed by our next generation."
The foundation recognized 12 young people nominated for their charitable commitments to the community and named Top Achievers in each of three categories. Cutright said the nominees were evaluated by an independent group based on their initiative and creativity, the impact of their actions, the benefit to the community and their generosity.
Each nominee received a certificate and a tree seedling. Cutright said the trees represent a Greek proverb about investing in the future."A society grows when old men plant trees to provide shade under which they will never sit," Cutright said. "To plant a tree is really kind of an unselfish act. It's a hopeful gesture. You hope that it will provide shade or shelter or safety, quite possibly for someone that you've never even met."
Isaac Coffy, a 2012 Kids Who Care recipient, spoke Thursday about how helping others changed his life. He was recognized last year with several other students for producing a video about teen depression to raise awareness in response to three student suicides that occurred in the community.
Coffy said he knew he couldn't stop there. Since receiving the award, Coffy donated the money his group received from the ACCF to a charity that focuses on suicide awareness education in schools. He also became involved and is planning an awareness 5K in October.
Coffy also spoke about a car accident he was involved with in February. He said he passed out behind the wheel due to exhaustion but walked away with only a scratched knee and the event further inspired him to help others."
At that point, I knew that we can't just go on living life for ourselves and for the benefit of just us," he said. "If we take time out of our days, whether it's just a small amount of time or a small amount of money or whatever it is, if we take time out of that and invest that in others, we can change lives."
Coffy encouraged the other nominees Thursday to not stop with the actions that earned them recognition but to continue helping others.
In the grades 9 through 12 category, four seniors in the Career Center Interact Club were presented with the Top Achiever award for completing several projects to raise money for a variety of causes in Ashland County and beyond, including international Rotary projects. Skye Fetters, Jeremy Jackson, Dayna Taylor and Stormey Trayter received the award.
"It's important to help people because someday you might be the one who needs help," Trayter said. "Even if you're not, it feels good doing it."
Ashland Middle School eighth-grader Emily Ebert received the award in the category for grades 7 through 8 for volunteering at Ashland Public Library for its Summer Reading Program and donating used books to the school.
"It's great to see kids read and escape into those worlds," she said. "To have a good vocabulary and sense of adventure is irreplaceable."
In the category for grades 1 through 6, Ava Bracken, 6, a first-grader at Edison Primary School, received the award for selling T-shirts, running a lemonade stand and having a garage sale to raise money and awareness for ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) in honor of her grandfather.
"We thought about our grandpa because he has ALS. It can't get better," Bracken said, adding that she liked the project because she got to drink lemonade and because it felt good to help others. Her younger sister, Sydney, 4, also helped raise money. Their mother, Kim Bracken, said she was very proud of them.
ACCF gave each Top Achiever a $100 check to pay it forward to a charity of their choice.
Ashland County Community Foundation recognizes organizations, individuals for making an impact in the community
By Missy Loar T-G Staff Writer. Published: April 12, 2013 4:00AM..
Local organizations and individuals were recognized Thursday for making a difference in the community at the Ashland County Community Foundation's annual Impact Recognition event.
More than 30 past recipients of ACCF grants were considered for five awards that recognized winners for the impact they had in the community with the aid of grant funding. Executive director and CEO James M. Cutright emphasized that the foundation appreciates the contributions of all of the grant recipients. "We're really all winners," Cutright said. "I appreciate the fact that all of you go above and beyond to make Ashland County a better place to live."
Nominees were considered in four categories: education, health/human services, community progress/arts/environment and teacher mini-grants. Of the four winners, one was chosen to receive the overall AACF Choice Award. Each category winner will receive an additional $2,000 from the foundation and the Choice Award winner will receive $4,000 total, including $2,000 for the category award. "You're making an impact, so we want to make an impact on you," Cutright said of the monetary award.
Ashland Symphony Orchestra was recognized in the community progress/arts/environment category, as well as with the Choice Award for its in-school ensemble program that takes symphony ensembles into schools to work with students.
Keith Boales, a member of the board of trustees, said the evaluators who helped judge the grant recipients noted that the ASO's program "was an opportunity for students to be introduced to music, maybe for the first time."
Jarrod Hartzler, general manager, said the additional funding will help ASO fund a new program next year featuring a concert during the school day for which students will take a field trip to see the symphony, meet the conductor and the musicians, learn about the instruments and hear the orchestra play. "It's really an honor to win this. Thank you all very much," Hartzler said after receiving the first award. "We know that as education budgets become tight, the arts are one of those things that are often omitted from schools or there's less money and less opportunities, so we're trying to make up for that in every way possible that we can as often as we can."
Ashland Middle School's Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, known locally as "Ban Bullying," was recognized in the education category.
Kym Irwin, a guidance counselor involved in organizing the program, said the main goal is to move students from the position of bystanders or witnesses of bullying to the role of an "upstander," or defender, of others. Every two weeks, students and staff are encouraged to participate in "bully breakout" educational sessions, and students are now being trained in leadership roles as ambassadors. Irwin said the program, now in its third year, conducts an annual survey and has seen a decrease in certain types of bullying.
Emmanuel United Methodist Church's Ashland Community Breakfast Center was recognized in the health/human services category.
John and Nancy Barnes, a husband and wife team at the church, run the weekly center, which is open to anyone and offers a free breakfast from 8:30 to 10 a.m. every Saturday. The Barnes have run the center for the past six years, but the church has been providing breakfast for at least 30 years, John said. With the ACCF grant, they were able to purchase a dishwasher to help. "We're very appreciate of it," John said. "We're proud that we're able to fill somebody's tummy and keep them warm."
Caren Schmitz, a second-grade teacher at Taft Elementary School, was recognized in the teacher mini-grant category for a field trip that took students to see a live production of "Junie B. Jones," a theater adaptation of the Barbara Park books of the same name, at Renaissance Theatre in Mansfield. Schmitz said second-grade students read the books but, with budget cuts in schools, trips to the theater and field trips in general are not as common. "It was amazing how many hadn't seen Mansfield or seen the grandeur of the theater," she said. "They were very mesmerized."
Ashland County Community Foundation, in operation for 17 years, has provided more than $5.3 million to the community through various grants programs and more than 260 donor-created funds.
ACCF Receives Chamber "Professional Service" Award
The Ashland Area Chamber of Commerce awarded Ashland County Community Foundation its 2013 "Professional Service" Award at a recent event.
ACCF was carefully selected from a pool of nominees and recognized for its excellence in providing stewardship to its donors' assets, as well as its community grant-making efforts in Ashland County.
Executive Director, Jim Cutright, gratefully accepted the award and acknowledged the 5,900-plus donors who make it possible for the Foundation to make a lasting impact in our county.
ACCF Seeks to Grow Agency Partnerships
After turning day-to-day operations of the Ashland County Community Foundation to the foundation's executive director and CEO, Jim Cutright last fall, president and founder Dr. Lucille Ford will focus her efforts on growing partnerships among the 20 agencies that have endowment funds with the foundation. At an "Agency Partnership Growth Luncheon" on February 13, Ford offered her time and expertise to representatives from the foundation's partner agencies for "brainstorming, consulting or just dreaming dreams."
Cutright describes Ford's new role as that of a mentor to agencies that have already established a relationship with the foundation. "She would be a valuable asset to any of these agencies," Cutright said, adding that developing partner agencies was always of interest to Ford but was something she had less time to actively pursue while she was running the foundation's operations.
"On a half-time basis, it's fun to be a little more focused," Ford said. Shortly after the foundation was founded in 1995, Ashland County Cancer Association, Hospice of North Central Ohio and Ashland Family YMCA began the first three agency partnership funds with the foundation. Since then, the list of partner agencies has grown to include 20 organizations.
"Our new emphasis is simply to say, 'agency partners are a powerhouse,'" Ford told those in attendance at the February 13 event. "There may be ways to utilize the power that exists within this 20 for the good of the community." Ford hopes to strengthen relationships among the agencies through occasional meetings, sparking dialogue that could lead to collaborations.
"Cutty's leadership presence has given me tremendous freedom to pursue dreams and I have chosen this area because I think it has so much value," Ford said. "Two minds are better than one."
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