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By David Vollrath, Executive Director Union County Foundation May and June are wonderful months. Not because of the newly arrived summer weather but more so because of the newly arrived local graduates. Each year during this season hundreds of Union County young men and women graduate from high school or college. One of the very best parts of my job at the Foundation is being a part of the more than 15 different Scholarship Funds housed within the Foundation. In recent years scholarship funding has been one our fastest growing areas of support. Many of our scholarships use award criteria that result in not just the top students winning awards, I like that trend. The good news is that this year 34 students will share over $56,000 of Foundation housed scholarship awards. For that I am extremely proud and thankful. The bad news is that many other deserving graduates will not receive any scholarship awards. The point is that there is great opportunity to continue to expand the number of scholarships awarded to our young people. You would be hard pressed to find a better place to invest some of your charitable $’s then in the education of our youth. Walter & Doris Herd are a perfect example of one way to support scholarships. Recently the Herds decided they wanted to use some of their assets to support future scholarships. Through the help of their professional advisors the Herds were able to gift appreciated stock to the Foundation to eventually support The Walter & Doris Herd Memorial Scholarship Fund. This Fund will annually award numerous scholarships to students with connections to agriculture. In addition the Herds were able to direct that “their” scholarships should give precedence to students in the lower 90% of class rank. This type of legacy is one that can truly help make a difference in young people’s lives. Clearly not everyone is able to support scholarships to the generous level that the Herds have but numbers of us have means to support scholarships in smaller ways. If many of us would simply make an annual contribution to an existing scholarship fund the scope of awards could be expanded significantly. My hope is that when my recent college graduate reaches my age (28 years from now) that the students of Union County will be the proud recipients of an unprecedented number of locally based scholarships; thanks to good people such as Walter & Doris Herd….. and you. The Union County Foundation is equipped to help you achieve your charitable goals by providing: planned giving and estate planning resource information, charitable gift annuities/life income plans, and a broad array of charitable choices including establishment of scholarship funds and donor advised funds. The Foundation encourages you to work closely with your professional advisor(s) as you develop your estate plan and consider your present and future charitable goals. Please call us at 937-642-9618, email info@unioncountyfoundation.org, reference our website at www.unioncountyfoundation.org, or stop by our Marysville office at 126 N. Main St. We are committed to helping you… “preserve your footprint in time.” |
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