Surprise bequest will help Fundy scholarship fund

By Barb Rayner

$50,000 US – A surprise bequest of $50,000 (US) from a former resident will give a big boost to the Florence Hegan Spinney Scholarship Fund in New Brunswick.

Retired elementary teacher Bev Ingram explained that Spinney was a long-time kindergarten teacher in the town, fondly remembered by many Eastern Charlotte residents who received their early childhood education through her love and devotion.

Following Spinney’s death, she said a group of people whose children had attended her kindergarten decided to do something for her related to education.

They held fundraising fashion shows for several years and when she met Spinney’s son, Norval Winston Hegan, he donated $250 to add to the scholarship fund, said Ingram. Hegan died in San Diego, CA last August, just a few weeks shy of his 80^th birthday.

Eventually, as the funds dwindled, it became a named sub-fund of the Eastern Charlotte Scholarship Fund, which is held by Fundy Community Foundation and provides scholarships to Fundy High students furthering their education at university or college.

Then out of the blue, Ingram received a large brown envelope in the mail from a lawyer in California, which contained a copy of Hegan’s will – the first item was a $50,000 bequest to the scholarship fund established in memory of his mother.

“I am very appreciative. I contacted Fundy Community Foundation and the money will be invested and just the principle used. When the scholarship fund got so small, it was grouped with others,” says Ingram.

FCF, a Canadian public charitable foundation, is also recognized as a charity through the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, explains Executive Director Sandy Thurber, so FCF was able to facilitate the cross-border bequest to provide tax benefit for the estate.

Barb Rayner is a reporter with The Saint Croix Courier, and a former Director with Fundy Community Foundation. This story was first published in The Saint Croix Courier http://stcroixcourier.ca/

You Can Do It Awards give Winnipeg students boost to pursue higher education

By Skana Gee

When Seneca Chartrand arrived at R.B. Russell High School in Winnipeg, she anticipated more school work. She had no idea just how challenging it would be.

But the possibility of securing an award from The Winnipeg Foundation kept her on track, working hard and tackling many challenges.

“A few times she called me from the school to say ‘Somebody has gotten shot, somebody has gotten stabbed across the street.’ That’s something you really don’t want a kid to have to worry about when they’re going to school,” says her mother, Cheyenne Chartrand.

But Seneca persevered, and last June, she received a You Can Do It Award, which provided $1,000 toward her post-secondary education. The teen from the inner-city is now enrolled in the Creative Communications program at Red River College.

“It’s like tapping somebody on the shoulder and saying we know you can do this,” says Rick Frost, The Winnipeg Foundation’s CEO. “It’s encouragement to say, ‘You’re not going to be stopped by financial barriers.’ “

The program began last year, with 270 students from inner-city schools selected, based on attendance, effort, academic achievement, volunteerism and leadership. Because kids can qualify from Grade 5 on, with $1,000 put into a “learning account” each school year, there’s potential for them to earn $8,000 toward their post-secondary education.

A program like this doesn’t happen in a vacuum, of course. It’s a partnership between The Winnipeg Foundation, the Province of Manitoba, Winnipeg School Division and Winnipeg Poverty Reduction Council.

Shania Murdock, a Grade 9 student, also received a You Can Do It Award last school year. She already knows she wants to be a teacher.

“For many of our students, it may be the first time somebody from their family has gone on to post-secondary education, so it’s an accomplishment for their entire family,” R.B. Russell vice-principal Chris Goring told the media after the awards were presented.

Skana Gee is Communications Coordinator with Community Foundations of Canada

Car club helping at-risk students for past 15 years, thanks to Fundy Community Foundation

By Skana Gee

Sandy Thurber still remembers the day the Grand Manan Community School student council members came to Fundy Community Foundation looking for a grant to start a car club.

It was more than 15 years ago, and the foundation was just getting up and running in Charlotte County, New Brunswick. Thurber, now the organization’s Executive Director, remembers that the students were worried about education cuts that would see their school lose its shop classes.

The small island school had experienced high drop-out rates, and these savvy students wanted to make school relevant to kids at risk. The car club, they believed, would help.

The students were doing their part with fund-raisers – even chopping and stacking wood – but they needed a $1,000 grant to get started. It was one of the first grants awarded by Fundy Community Foundation, which now has almost $3.5 million in endowments and has granted more than $500,000 to worthwhile projects and initiatives.

And it is still one of the most meaningful. It allowed the students of Grand Manan, one of three small islands served by the foundation, to purchase a 1980 automobile, strip it to the frame and completely rebuild it into a functioning race car. Each year since, a new group of students gets its chance to do the same.

The club is now starting work building a car carrier (a flatbed truck) to use to carry the car to special events. The car, dubbed Thumper, has been driven in races at an actual race track and once even made the ferry trip to the mainland to attend the community foundation’s annual general meeting. And, more importantly, it is keeping students engaged in their education.

The kids tell Ms. Thurber that there are always students with their noses pressed up against the window of the auto shop. Everyone wants to be involved. And they can be, but they must attend classes and keep their marks up – the school has even started a tutoring service to make sure that happens.

With continuing grants and support from the foundation, the school has been able to purchase a second vehicle and help more young people stay on the right path. And it has brought the community together, as people of all ages catch the students’ infectious enthusiasm.

A prime example of the way in which a small amount of money can make a big impact.

Skana Gee is Communications Coordinator with Community Foundations of Canada

Squamish’s Vital Signs celebrates success, offers direction for improvement

By Caroline Ashekian

The Squamish Community Foundation (SCF) celebrated the inaugural launch of its Vital Signs report in 2011.

The journey has been abundant with community engagement, visionary leadership, and many volunteer hours. I have had the privilege to be a part of this journey as a participant in the community engagement process.

Now, as a new board member with the SCF, I admire the fruits of everyone’s labour, and have a greater appreciation for the process by which this project was realized.

Caroline Ashekian, board member with Squamish Community Foundation

The launch of this first Squamish Vital Signs report is a milestone achievement for our board. And by virtue of the process and all that the report shares, it is also a celebration of our community’s achievements and successes. The results showcase positive trends, an exciting one being the health and wellness of the community, with indicators reflecting healthier and more active residents than both the BC and national levels, as well as a growing sense of life satisfaction.

Of course, by providing a snapshot of the community, Squamish’s Vital Signs 2011 also reflects opportunities for growth and improvement, such as in the areas of early childhood development, safety, and the gap between rich and poor. For every key issue, the report includes a special feature on how the SCF is contributing to improvements in these areas, and how residents can do their part to help.

The Squamish Vital Signs launch event featured more than one reason to celebrate. In addition to the report launch and presentation, the evening featured presentations and displays from our grantees, and recognition of our donors with the first presentation of our Ascent of Philanthropy program.

The Squamish Vital Signs is beneficial on many levels, and provides clear vision to SCF and our community as we all move forward and leap into action.

Caroline Ashekian is a Director of Squamish Community Foundation

Identifying trends from five years of Greater Saint John’s Vital Signs

Sara Mudge

By Sara Mudge

This year The Greater Saint John Community Foundation published its 6th annual check-up and 5th Vital Signs report.

Being at the mid-point of a 10-year commitment to Vital Signs, we decided to take a look back on data reported in past reports and identify trends that have emerged. Here are some of the highlights:

-          The overall poverty rate in the Saint John CMA has declined from 23% to 20.6%

-          Violent crime has remained fairly constant, averaging 2,120 incidents per year

-          The obesity rate has remained constant: 24.9% in 2005 and 24.2% in 2010

-          The percentage of population with post-secondary education has risen slightly from 45.1% to 46.3%

-          The rental vacancy rate has declined from 5.1% to 3.4%

-          The unemployment rate has remained constant: 7.1% in 2005 and 7.6% in 2010

-          The youth unemployment rate has risen slightly from 12.4% in 2005 and 13.7% in 2010

-          The number of tax filers making charitable donations has decreased from 25.3% to 22.9%

-          Household spending in arts and culture has remained constant, averaging $940 per household

-          Household compost rates have increased from 59% to 70%

The GSJCF has been using Vital Signs data to influence our granting and has created a $30,000 Anniversary Grant, awarded annually to those organizations that help address Vital Signs priorities.

Past projects include the creation of a school where teenage mothers can obtain their high school diploma, the expansion of a homeless shelter to include 42 additional beds, a new playground in a poverty-stricken neighbourhood, a physical activity program for children, a youth-oriented environmental program to improve the health and integrity of the harbour and estuaries, the production of a musical to commemorate Saint John’s 225th Anniversary, and the creation of a teen pregnancy prevention program.

Sara Mudge is Secretary for The Greater Saint John Community Foundation

Community foundations profiled in Globe and Mail supplement

Did you happen to catch the special National Philanthropy Day information feature in Tuesday’s Globe and Mail?

It includes a terrific story about community foundations, headlined Community foundations unite assets, funds, and people to make a positive difference, as well as articles on the Salvation Army, maximizing your gift, and humanitarian uses of scientific technology.

Definitely worth a read!

Pathways to Education: A social innovation with powerful impact

By Carolyn Acker

The Canadian Council on Learning tells us there will be a major shortfall in post-secondary graduates by 2013, when up to 70% of new and replacement jobs will require post-secondary education. It’s an issue highlighted last month in many Vital Signs reports.

Youth in Canada’s lowest income communities are dropping out of high schools at a rate in excess of 50% and in some communities as high as 60%. Canada’s future depends upon us finding a way to fix this problem. 

That’s where the model Pathways to Education comes in. In 2001, as Executive Director of the Regent Park Community Health Centre, I founded the program withNorman Rowen. Six years later we had reduced the 56% high school drop-out rate to 11% and increased post secondary participation from 20% to 81%.

We have replicated the program in 10 additional low-income communities fromWinnipegtoHalifaxand now more than 3,500 students are getting comparable results.

A participant, at right, in Pathways to Education. She has now graduated high school and is attending university.

Attempts to reduce the drop-out rate in economically disadvantaged communities – through school-based initiatives and reforms alone — have been largely unsuccessful. Why? In large part because the risk factors for dropping out are not limited to the school environment.

Critical factors are found in their home communities. Pathways was designed to focus on these risk factors. Based in the community, Pathways provides four integrated supports over four years of secondary school:

• Tutoring four nights per week in the community
• Transit tickets or lunch vouchers earned through attendance, plus a $4,000 scholarship to be used towards post-secondary costs payable to the college or university
• Group mentoring for grades 9 and 10; specialty/career mentoring for grades 11 and 12
• Student Parent Support Workers, who serve as a bridge between the community, parents, students, high schools and the program
• Students, together with their parent(s), sign agreements to participate and have done so in record numbers

Community Foundations acrossCanadahave invested in Pathways not only because we are changing the lives of thousands of youth, but also because there is good financial reason to invest.

The Boston Consulting Group reports that $1 invested in Pathways generates a $25 return to society in terms of decreased social costs and an increased tax base.

Education really does have the power to change everything.

Carolyn Acker is founder of Pathways to Education Canada

High school drop-out rates prompt grant to Youth Fusion

It goes without saying that kids generally look up to older kids, and a Quebec program that targets under-performing high schools – with support from the Foundation of Greater Montreal – clearly illustrates that.

Youth Fusion is an award-winning charity that establishes innovative partnerships between high schools and universities, in an effort to counter high-school drop-out rates.

A Youth Fusion participant struts his stuff during the talent show at Saint-Henri High School. Photo by Tristan Brand

It’s an issue of concern to the Foundation, which revealed in its Vital Signs 2010 report that Montreal has a 32-per-cent drop out rate among students, and that a significant number of adolescents over 15 years of age did not complete high school (21%).

“Youth Fusion has proven results – the students enrolled graduate in far greater numbers. It began in one school and has spread to dozens of others across the province,” says Marina Boulos-Winton, the Foundation’s President & CEO.

In 2010, FGM used a donor-advised fund to help refurbish musical equipment in two participating Youth Fusion schools, and the following year supported French, science and math programs for three participating schools.

Youth Fusion pays university students an hourly wage to work with high-risk kids after school on student-directed projects in fields ranging from music and environment to entrepreneurship and robotics.

Rogers Communications recently asked for the Foundation’s recommendations on directing donations to address the province’s high-school drop-out rates, after the issue made media headlines. The company ended up giving $600,000, over three years, to two suggested organizations, Youth Fusion and Allo Prof, which provides phone and online homework help to students and parents across Quebec.

University town provides hope of higher education to local children

When Wolfville’s Vital Signs 2009 revealed significant poverty in the community, many were shocked.

“It’s a seemingly affluent university town,” says Allison Kouzovnikov, Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia, home to the Wolfville Community Fund (WCF) which led the community-based report.

To address the issue, the WCF funded breakfast and afterschool programs, and partnered with the Wolfville Area Inter-Church Council to help residents access the Canada Learning Bond, a federal grant that contributes $500 to an RESP (and $100 each year after) for children living in low-income families.

The Wolfville Community Fund is helping residents access the Canada Learning Bond, a federal RESP program aimed at low-income families.

Parents don’t have to contribute. But they do need to obtain and file the right paperwork, which at nearly $30 per child, can be cost prohibitive.

Helping parents to save for education may be controversial if they are struggling to put food on the table. However, the WCF understood the need for both immediate and longer-term approaches.

“How many children walk past Acadia University never giving it a second thought that a higher education is something that is possible for them too?” asks Dick Groot, Chair of the WCF. “If we want our children to grow up and be good citizens we need to instil in them not only the desire, but the real possibility that a better life can be made through hard work, sacrifice and dedication.”

“The WCF’s work reflects the community foundation philosophy,” says Kouzovnikov. “We help communities build the social and financial capital they need, both today and tomorrow.”

Preschool program promotes healthy development for Aboriginal youngsters

When Victoria’s Vital Signs 2009 revealed a dire lack of child care – only 5,244 registered spaces for 18,126 children five and younger in the Capital Region – the Victoria Foundation decided it could help bridge that gap in a unique way.

By supporting the establishment of Little Paws Preschool, the foundation is addressing that finding while also helping Aboriginal children grow and develop in culturally sensitive surroundings.

Children at Little Paws Preschool in Victoria benefit from a caring, culturally sensitive environment

“This helped the Victoria Native Friendship Centre, which serves 20,000 Aboriginal residents living off and on reserve, expand its continuum of services,” says Sandra Richardson, Victoria Foundation CEO.

Little Paws Preschool is a licensed facility that accepts children aged 3 to 5, some of whom are in government care. The school provides an excellent link to family and culture. It has a Little Big House built by a local Aboriginal builder and a donated Mi’kmaq canoe in its playground.

The children are more prepared for the next level of education and are healthier because of their interactions with their peers and culturally safe adults, says the centre’s Executive Director, Bruce Parisian.

“The funds from the Victoria Foundation mean that 20 Aboriginal children had the ability to attend preschool this past year, learning about their culture and the world around them,” he says. “It’s impossible to pick just one story because there were so many successes this past school year!”