When the Grand Marais Art Colony held its very successful Empty Bowl Dinner November 12, the beautiful bowls created for the event were made possible by community volunteers—and a grant from the Cook County Community Fund.
Some of the soup that filled the bowls came from vegetables grown in the WTIP Community Garden by the “Stone Soup Gardeners, a children’s gardening project of the Cook County Extension Office. It, too, was funded by the Community Fund.
Children from the Cooperation Station daycare program also participated in Empty Bowls. Adults who educate Cooperation Station’s young charges received training assistance through another Community Fund grant.
“This is how the CCCF helps build a better community,” said Howard Hedstrom, CCCF advisory board chair. “This year, we also helped provide dental care for kids, contributed to a literacy program for children and families, aided Cook County Higher Education’s Open Door program and gave a boost to the hospice program of the North Shore Health Care Foundation. Now we need everyone’s help so we can continue to enhance our community-building opportunities.”
Hedstrom’s reference is to the CCCF’s fall challenge grant fundraising drive. From now through the end of 2009, the CCCF advisory board will seek to raise $6,000 in new donations, to match a generous $6,000 challenge grant from a CCCF advisory board member.
“If we succeed in raising the $6,000,” Hedstrom said, “it will mean that when we make new grant awards next June, they can be larger or go to an even greater number of groups doing good works. This is how we seek to grow the community fund, now six years old, to be a powerful force for good in our community. I hope everyone will consider a gift to the CCCF – really a gift to their community – during this season of thanksgiving.”
The Cook County Community Fund is an affiliate of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation. Donations to can be sent to CCCF, P.O. Box 728, Grand Marais, or directly to the Duluth Superior Foundation at 324 West Superior Street, Suite 212, Duluth, MN 55802.
Hedstrom also announced that two of the CCCF advisory board members are leaving after six years of service: Attorney Leigh Mathison, leader of the original group that saw the need for a community fund and acted to get it organized, and Mike LaVigne, president of Grand Marais State Bank. Two new members, Tracy Benson and Sue Riley, will be joining the board.
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