Kent Community Foundation

September, 2009 President's Report
Kent Community Foundation

Summer has slowed things down for us a bit following our grant and scholarship dinner in June. We did participate in the Kent School District “New Teacher Orientation” in early August, welcoming these new teachers on behalf of the Foundation and the Kent and Covington business communities.

We do now have a signed agreement with the Kent Police Department for their Drinking Driver Task Force “Game of Life” and “Youth Board” programs. All we need now is donations. Anyone interested should contact me or another board member or Stacy Judd at the Police Department.

We continue to work with the “Friends of KM” to set up a scholarship program for deserving [low income/high potential] KM students. This program is temporarily unique in that we have received contributions but, due to summer schedules, do not yet have an agreement with the school.

We are also looking into the possibility of setting up a “Robotics” grant or scholarship program in association with the School District and the Chamber Education Committee.

We are also looking at our general grant process to assure that it is meeting community needs.

Jim McGinnis, President

The foundation’s annual grant and scholarship awards dinner was held on June 9 at the Golden Steer.  The opening remarks were made by retiring Kent School District superintendant, Dr Barbara Grohe.  The closing inspirational remarks were given by Kent School Board president, Jim Berrios.

Community grant:

A community grant was awarded to the City of Kent, Cultural Programs, for Kent Kids Art Day, which occurred earlier this spring.

Education grants were awarded to:

Chris Caldwell of Scenic Hill Elementary for “Poetry Slam”, and

Donna Whitney of East Hill Elementary for “News Connections—Opening Doors to the World through Non-fiction Reading”.

Scholarships presented were:

The Richard and Ina Balash Scholarship for a senior at Kentwood or Kentlake planning on a business or engineering career went to Brandon Noftsger of Kentlake.

The Covington Chamber of Commerce Scholarship for a senior from the Covington area went to Holly Nies of Kentwood.

The Rob Osborne Scholarship awarded in his memory to a senior athlete from Kent Meridian went to Hork Do.

The Linda Ruby Scholarships for students planning on entering the teaching profession [also open to students re-applying after entering college] went to Alexander Li from Kentwood, Holly Nies from Kentwood, Megan Sandall of Kentridge, Simone Senn fromWestern Washington [Kentwood], Brianna Armstrong from Gonzaga [Kentlake], Amanda Ogle from Central Washington [Kentlake], Byron Edelman from Washington State [Kentlake], Ryan Ogle from Central Washington [Kentlake], Katie Bailey from Washington State [Kentwood],  Melissa Jones from Green River Community College [Kentridge] and Luke Weinbrecht from Pacific Lutheren University [Kentlake]. These students range from first year winners to, for the first time, a fifth year winner, Luke, who will be attending graduate school next year.

The event was a true celebration of what is right with our students and teachers today.

Jim McGinnis, President