New Fund Established to Support Brockway Community

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New Fund Established to Support Brockway Community

The Elk County Community Foundation recently met with local organizations and groups that will benefit from the creation of a new Fund at the Foundation. The Caroline E. Longwell Fund will provide perpetual gifts to six local agencies that include: Brockway Area High School Student Loan Fund, Brockway Mengel Memorial Library, Brockway Volunteer Hose Company, Brockway Ambulance Service, Sugar Hill Presbyterian Church and Brockway Presbyterian Church.

Caroline has been described and a generous, caring and dedicated educator in the Brockway area by the agency representative when they met for lunch at the Rocky Grill, recently. In 2006 Ms. Longwell and S & T Bank established a Charitable Remainder Unitrust. While Caroline was living it provided her with a quarterly distribution and upon her passing it will now provide a perpetual gift to the six local agencies that will be administered by the Elk County Community Foundation

Recently, Paula Fritz Eddy, Executive Director of the Foundation met with
representatives from the agencies to present the first of the annual distributions. $12,400 in all was distributed and at the luncheon where a number of stories and memories where share about Caroline and her love of her community.

Dan Hawkins and Laurie Piccirillo told us how Ms. Longwell was a motivator and one of the founders of the Brockway Area High School Student Load Fund, held and the school. She served as the Finance Secretary to the Student Loan program for many years. The program began around 1953 and has provided over $1 million of student loans to Brockway students. Caroline was also a math teacher and went on to become the guidance counselor at the high school.

Jim Grant and Rev. Clair Lundberg explained that Caroline had grown up in Sugar Grove and went to the Presbyterian church there as a child. At the time when she moved to Brockway, the Brockway and Sugar Grove churches were yoked together and during her adult years she was involved and attended services at both churches. To their knowledge Ms. Longwell remained a member at Sugar Grove Presbyterian Church.

Brockway Volunteer Hose Company’s Terry Fusine shared with the group his story of dinners that he would attend with Caroline and it seemed often he would be called out to the Hose Company for an emergency. Over the years she became interested in the training and sacrifices that the volunteers from both the Hose company and the ambulance crews were involved with. She truly valued their commitment and services to her community.

Though not able to attend the luncheon Ed Ferraro, the representative from the Brockway Mengel Memorial Library, stated the “Education was her life and including the library was a natural for Caroline. She loved helping children learn”

The mission of the Community Foundation is to strengthen our region through development, stewardship and grant making as donors achieve their philanthropic goals. Its vision is to connect people who care with causes that matter. The Foundation assists donors who are interested in starting a fund to benefit nearly any charitable organization or cause that they want to support, whether as a named fund or in the memory of a deceased family member or friend. The Caroline E. Longwell Fund that will benefit the community of Brockway through agencies that were imported to Ms. Longwell is one of 118 different funds the Foundation manages. If interested learning more about the Foundation people are encouraged to contact Paula at the Foundation by calling 814-834-2125 or visiting its website at www.elkcountyfoundation.com.

Pictured from L to R

Sitting Paula Fritz Eddy, Executive Director of the Foundation, Rev. Clair Lundberg and Jim Grant of Brockway Presbyterian Church; Laurie Piccirillo of Brockway Area School District

Standing are Terry Fustine and Brad Gankosky of the Brockway Volunteer Hose Company; Don Moore and Paul Verne of the Brockway Ambulance Services and Dan Hawkins of the Brockway Area School District.

Elk County Society for Special Services Opens Fund

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Elk County Society for Special Services Opens Fund for Competitative Grants

Recently, the board and volunteer of the Elk County Society for Special Services closed their doors but the work done by these dedicated volunteers will be remembered and the funds they had will continue to serve pre-k students for generations to come. The Elk County Society for Special Services has had an endowment fund with the Elk County Community Foundation since 2003. With the sale of their “Learning Center” facility on the Johnsonburg Road, they added those dollars to their endowment and redirected the funds to a competitive grant program. Even though the organization has dissolved their mission to serve pre-k students with educational programing will continue.

The Elk County Community Foundation will be accepting grant applications from any nonprofit agency which provides services for the purposes of providing Pre-K education. The application should improve programs that are already established or develop new programs. The funds will not cover direct operating expenses of an agency rather it hopes to enhance already established programs. The competitive grant application is available on the Foundations website www.elkcountyfoundaiton.com . This inaugural grant cycle has a deadline of January 15, 2015. Applications will be acted upon and award by March1. This first year the fund has $2800 to award.
Pat Straub, past President of the organization, said of the newly established grant program “Over the years many local, caring people gave of their time, talents, and found available resources to provide for student at a time when other agencies or schools where unable to do it. Innovation in programming to meet the needs of our community had evolved through the years — from special needs of children to literacy, hearing, speech — as well as quality early learning initiatives which were not available through normal channels for many years. The dedicated board always found a way to ‘get it done’ on a shoestring budget funded in large part through private donations and limited funding sources. This perpetual monetary fund will help those agencies and groups enhance their programing needs, fund special projects, and maximize the impact of giving back to the community.”
The partnership between the Elk County Society for Special Services and the Elk County Community Foundation though has changed, but, the dollars will continue to serve pre-k students. To learn more about applying for this grant, establishing a fund or even how someone can support the good works the many organizations in the community contact Paula Fritz Eddy at the Elk County Community Foundation office by calling at 834-2125 or contacting them through their website at www.elkcountyfoundation.com.

Pictured at their final meeting are members of the Elk County Society for Special Services board from left to right around the table: Gloria Straub, Rosemary Fritz, Jean Masson, Eleanor Green, Susy Straub and Pat Straub. See More

Hoehn and Geitner Scholarship Funds Transfer to ECCF

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Hoehn and Geitner Scholarship Funds Transfer to ECCF

Mr. Sam MacDonald, president of the Elk County Catholic School System, is pleased to announce that ECCSS is transferring the Gilbert J. and Dorothy E. Hoehn Scholarship Fund and the Edna… Geitner Bennett Memorial Scholarship Fund to the Elk County Community Foundation for management. Both funds provide scholarships exclusively for Elk County Catholic High School graduating seniors going on to college. Because the funds are not directly related to school operations, it is fitting that they be managed by the Foundation which works with college scholarships on a daily basis.The Foundation has consistency in its application process for both the guidance office and seniors at ECC and having two more scholarships in the ECCF portfolio benefits the Foundation. Most importantly, through the Foundation, ECC students who are awarded these scholarships will have the opportunity to apply for PATH matching grants, a special program through PHEAA, which could not be done through ECCHS. Last year students in our area were matched with over $54,000.
The school system is most grateful to the Hoehn and Geitner families for having established these scholarships years ago. Many students over the years have benefited from their generosity and that legacy will continue through these two Elk County Community Foundation scholarship funds. Pictured with MacDonald are Mary S. Meyer, director of advancement of ECCSS who assisted with the transfer, and Paula Fritz Eddy, executive director of ECCF

Farmers National Bank Presents Check to ECCF

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Farmers National Bank Presents Check to

Elk County Community Foundation

Recently Farmers National Bank presented a $3,000 check to the Elk County Community Foundation. These funds will be included in the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program (EITC) which then will make grants available to area public schools to support innovative educational programs that do not fall within the typical academic program. The funds for these innovative programs are administered and distributed through the Foundation, which has been designated to serve as an Educational Improvement Organization by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. During 2014 the Elk County Community Foundation awarded over $52,000 through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program . St. Marys, Johnsonburg and Ridgway Area School Districts were able to apply for grants for programming. These grants impacted nearly 3,500 students throughout the county.

This past year Johnsonburg School District replaced a computer cart with laptops and upgraded the wireless service at their Elementary school. One of the programs they use is “Study Island” which provides a lesson or video that the students are then tested on to see how much they retained. Another program, the students really seemed to like was called “Throw the Teacher” and it dealt mostly with math skills like multiplication and division. All in all, the students love using the laptops, each student has an assigned number for the computer they use and the privilege of using the laptops is reserved for the 6th graders and the cart house in the 6th grade wing of the school.

The Ridgway School District was able to purchase for each of their two buildings, HD video conference equipment, HD screen/projection devise and streaming continent input device. Their goal is to continue to enhance the technology experiences of their students. Students were able with this equipment to go on virtual field trips. There were a number of the virtual field trips/video conferences that their students have participated including a trip to NASA, San Diego Zoo, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Texas State Aquarium, Grand Teton National Park and the Holocaust Memorial Center where our students were able to interact with Holocaust survivors via video conferencing. The school also is utilizing the systems for recording and conferencing with school board meetings and presentations.

At St. Marys Area School District their goal is to continue to infuse 21st century technology into the classrooms for teacher and student access. This year the grant money provided by the EITC dollars provided the opportunity to expand their capacity of affording iPads to the elementary students for use in the classrooms. With the grant, 30iPads minis were purchased with a Powersync cart for the South St. Marys St. Elementary. Along with the iPads, a MacBook Pro 31 was purchased to use to sync all iPads with the same Apps. Finally the remainder of the grant was put towards the purchase of cases for the iPad minis. The iPads are being utilized in the elementary grades to deliver instructional intervention provide access to e-books, and to supplement instructional strategies with the classroom.

Any entity authorized to do business in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and subject to certain taxes is eligible to apply. Tax Credits are limited to 75% of the businesses contribution with a maximum of $750,000 annually. If a business agrees to make the same contribution for two consecutive tax years, it may receive a tax credit equal to 90% of its contribution.

If businesses wish to participate, they must submit a brief application to the DCED. The application can be found at www.inventpa.com. The Foundation also has applications and further information available to assist with the business application process.

Pictures are in Front(left to right): Craig Carrow and Richare Doverspike from Farmers National Bank, Paula Fritz Eddy from the Foundation and Heather Serefini from the Bank.

2014 Ridgway Charitable Fund Grants

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Ridgway Charitable Fund held at the Elk County Community Foundation

Grants $18,750 local agencies

The Elk County Community Foundation (ECCF) brought together non profit organizations that serve the residents of Ridgway, who where chosen to receive a grant from the Ridgway Borough Charitable Fund (RBCF). The Ridgway Borough Charitable Fund’s purpose is to provide financial support to those non-profit organizations whose application reflects a purpose or project that will benefit the residents of the Borough of Ridgway. The endowed fund was a gift received from the estate of Sara-Jane Stackpole and is held at the ECCF. As directed by Sara-Jane, the ECCF board of directors appointed an advisory committee made up of Ridgway community leaders and resident to review and distribute those grants that will enhance the quality of the life for all residents. This year’s Advisory Committee included Joe Bullers, Linda White, Mike Renaud, Derrick Goode, and Mary Jane Oknefski.

This year’s recipients are:

CAPSEA, Inc. requested and received $4850 to aid in their Flood Disaster Relief to replace and repair their storage, the items, storage and sump pump in their basement.

As well the Retired citizens Association of Ridgway had flood damage to their Center and they received $3900 towards their repairs.

Finally a $10,000 grant is going to the Ridgway YMCA who is working with Max Dush on his Eagle Scout aware. The project will restore the Frank Clark Memorial Basketball courts. The course was build years ago and is in much need of restoration. The project, when completed, hopes to resurface and paint existing courts, replace old bac boards and hoops, repair existing fences and add landscaping and privacy fencing.

Funds distributed were awarded for these community development initiatives that will enhance the well being of the Ridgway community. This year applications requests totaled over $38,175. The Ridgway Charitable Fund only had $18,750 to distribute this year. Donations are encouraged to grow the fund and to increase the amount of granting dollars available. Individuals, along with groups and business can make a tax deductible contribution by sending it to the Ridgway Borough Charitable Fund, c/o Elk County Community Foundation at P.O. Box 934, St. Marys, PA 15857

ECCF is a non profit organization that manages endowed funds established by donors for area non profit organizations or student scholarships. Donor gifts are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. For more information about opportunities at the Foundation please contact Paula Fritz Eddy at 814-834-2125 or visit our website at www.elkcountyfoundation.com.

Pictured left to right are: Linda White from RBCF with Rose Guth of the Retired Citizens Association of Ridgway; Mary Lynne Bellotti of the YMCA and Boy Scout, Max Dush, Derrick Good from RBCF; and finally Joe Bullers of the RBCF and Paula Fritz Eddy of ECCF with Billie Jo Wyant of CAPSEA.