Thank you for Inspiring Us!

Fall marks the busy season for many of us. Yard clean-up, holiday preparations, and year-end accounting can keep us distracted for the next 6 weeks.  At the Community Foundation, we are gearing up for the surge of generosity from you!

Whether it’s year-end gifts, memorials, IRA rollovers, and new endowment funds, we have exciting ways to give through the end of the year. Especially the Campaign for Emerging Opportunities that will make a meaningful difference in our ability to fund programs and projects in the community.

Thanksgiving is an important time to pause and come together with family and friends and celebrate one another’s company. More than the food, football, and getting a jump on holiday shopping—Thanksgiving is about giving thanks. It’s about recognizing everything we’ve been given and appreciating it fully.

One thing my mentor Brian Frederick taught me was that we at the Community Foundation are many things to many people – grantor, facilitator, convener, friend, and historian.  The last is my favorite. 

When a donor passes their light lives on through the grants we award in their name.  Every time we make a grant, award a scholarship, or accept a gift to an existing fund, we retell donors’ stories. It’s a moment when we pause and recognize who they were, what they cared about, and how their generosity is still impacting our community.  

We are honored to be the keeper of the stories, like we are able to do for David Jansheski, a master printmaker who bequeathed his entire collection to benefit the Arts in Lorain County forever.

We give thanks for you and your partnership with us in continually supporting and working with us in making Lorain County a great place for all. You inspire not only me, but our community.  While there is much need and much work to be done, we also can celebrate how far we have come.  And we have you to thank for that.

Best wishes,

~Danielle Locke, CAP®
Gift  Planning Officer