Skip to main content

The Community Foundation starts four new funds

By October 16, 2015April 21st, 2020In The News

Star staff report

WINCHESTER – The Community Foundation of the Northern Shenandoah Valley has established four funds that provide opportunities for long-term giving.

The foundation serves Winchester and Frederick, Clarke and Warren counties. Its mission is to support local nonprofit and charitable efforts by providing a way to establish endowed funds that give, in perpetuity, to an individual’s charity of choice.

The first fund, the Spelling Bee Fund, is seeking donations to support future bee contestants from the area.

The second is being set up by the Rotary Club of Winchester in partnership with Congregational-Community Action Project and Community Foundation. They have established an endowed “Coats For Kids” Fund.

For the last two years, the Rotary Club, through the leadership of Erik Beatley, has raised funds on an annual basis to provide more than 250 new coats for disadvantaged youths in the community.

The club’s effort is to now raise from $50,000 to $75,000 in order to create an endowed fund that will provide coats.

Beatley’s concern is that trying to fundraise on an annual basis may vary from year to year. Endowing a fund will provide assurances that children who need a warm winter coat will have one.

Third, the Winchester Group, a local community-minded business has established the Winchester Group Charitable Giving Fund.

The group – led by Gary Nichols, president; Chad Bales, vice president; and Mary Broy, operations manager – will decide each year how the proceeds from their fund will be used to support a cause or nonprofit organization in the Community Foundation service area.

Finally, in honor of the outgoing director Michael Whalton, the Community Foundation has established the Michael and Susan Whalton Fund for Wayward Animals.

These funds will be used to support local animal rescue and protection agencies in the northern Shenandoah Valley and West Virginia.

Scholarship funds can also be established in order to assure that students of the future have the financial support they need. The foundation has more than 50 endowed funds valued at close to a million dollars.

More than 700 community foundations have been established across America and they attract a wide variety of gifts and bequests to benefit local organizations through everlasting endowment.

Gifts to existing funds or the establishment of a new fund may be made by contacting Executive Director Dennis Kellison at 540-869-6776 or at dkellison@cfnsv.org.

Additionally, gifts to existing funds may be transacted online via the foundation website. Click on “Be A Donor.” – cfnsv.org