John Nagle, one of the founding Board members of the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend.

In 1964, John Nagle (also known as “Jack”) was among the founding Board members of the Davenport Area Foundation, which became the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend.

He was the last living original Board member when he passed away on Tuesday, January 24, at his residence at The Fountains in Bettendorf.

It takes vision for a small group of caring people to launch a community foundation. They are people who understand the far-reaching impact of building resources that enable us to help ourselves and address our own community needs and issues. From its humble start in 1964, our Community Foundation now has assets close to $80 million and total annual grants from our Foundation and our affiliates are around $6 million.

The Community Foundation was not his only charitable activity. As a tireless volunteer for many causes, John showed during his lifetime that he cared deeply for his community. He was a lawyer and C.P.A. in Davenport for 50 years and retired as a senior partner of the Nagle and Cook Law Firm. Read an in-depth biography from the Quad City Times here.

I’d like to extend our condolences to John’s wife, Mary, and to his family. The care he demonstrated with his actions has made life better for many thousands of people in the Quad Cities Area, and will do so for generations to come.

Thank you, John.

Grants up to $5,000 will be awarded based on how the program to be supported makes an impact on public health. Consideration will be given to projects that:

• Monitor health status to identify community problems;
• Inform, educate, and empower people about health issues;
• Link people to needed personal health services;
• Assure a competent public health and personal health care workforce;
• Research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems.

Grant applications must be submitted to the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend, 852 Middle Road, Ste 100, Bettendorf, IA 52722.

For more information about the Independent Physicians of the Quad Cities Fund, contact Nicole Freise at the Community Foundation at (563) 326-2840.

James and his father Larry operate World Leadership Institute.

Through their Quad Cities Business Radio project, they conduct interviews with area business and community leaders. The interviews are broadcast on WOC-AM radio and are put up on the Internet.

It’s a great service to the business community. I appreciate having the opportunity to explain how the Community Foundation helps generous people build legacies, how we build resources for the community, and how we have an impact on community needs and issues.

You can listen to the interview by following this link.

Teens for Tomorrow members presented grants to eight QCA nonprofits in 2011, including the Eldridge Volunteer Fire Department.

Teens for Tomorrow is now accepting grant applications from Quad Cities area nonprofits. Grants totaling $10,000 will be decided by 35 T4T members from Quad Cities area high schools. The grants will be awarded to charitable organizations serving Rock Island and Scott counties. Applications should be postmarked by March 1, 2012 and can be downloaded at www.cfgrb.org/t4t.

Teens for Tomorrow (T4T) is a philanthropic initiative of the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend.

The T4T program teaches high school students about the important work nonprofits do and some lessons about leadership and philanthropy that will last a lifetime.

During the nine-month T4T program, students from high schools in the Iowa and Illinois Quad Cities learn about the role nonprofits play in the community. They work together to identify community needs and explore the grant making process. At the end of the year, they distribute T4T grants to local nonprofits.

In 2010, through the Herb and Arlene Elliott Endowment, Teens for Tomorrow became a permanent program of the Foundation and now grants $10,000 annually to local nonprofit organizations.

Each year, as they get more involved in the application process and make the site visits, the teens begin to see the good that nonprofits do in the community, and they begin to care more than they expected when the school year began. I love to see the growth these teens experience every year, and I look forward to seeing the decisions they make about the grants.

Grant applications must be postmarked by March 1, 2012 and submitted to the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend, 852 Middle Road, Ste 100, Bettendorf, IA 52722. For more information about Teens for Tomorrow, contact the Foundation’s Youth Initiatives Advocate, Susan Parker at (563) 326-2840.

Luann Rickert, Vice President, Internal Audit for Deere & Company, is a new member of the Community Foundation's Board of Directors.

In its first meeting meeting of 2012, our Board of Directors voted to admit Luann Rickert as a Board member. She was present for the meeting.

Luann is Vice President, Internal Audit for Deere & Company, responsible for the worldwide internal audit function.  She joined Deere in 1979 as an auditor and has held positions of increasing responsibility over the past 32 years in varied areas, including Operations.  Luann is a graduate of Iowa State University with a degree in Industrial Administration/Accounting.  Her MBA is from the University of Iowa with a concentration in finance.   Luann and her family recently returned to the Quad City area from Germany.

She has been an active volunteer at charitable organizations throughout her career.

“The Community Foundation plays an important role in connecting people and resources with the needs of our region,” she says. “I’m happy to get involved with an organization which is dedicated to making a difference.  It will be exciting to work with the Board, staff, and volunteers as we continue that legacy of quality and caring so that, together, we can address the community needs far into the future.”

Luann replaces Jenny Kimball, who left the Board recently due to job duties that took her out of the area. We’re also in the process of replacing Alan Anderson, whose term expired at the end of 2011. Both Alan and Jenny deserve our thanks for their service on the Board.

As of today, our Board includes:

Mike Drymiller, Chair

Deann Thoms, 1^st Vice Chair

Pete Wessels, 2^nd Vice Chair

Chris Wahlig, Treasurer

Jill McLaughlin, Secretary

Diane Harris, Past Chair

Katherine Andrios

Dan Ellard

Randy Moore

Linda Neuman

Luann Rickert

Jean Steffenson

William Storm

Terry Wilson

Our Board members are volunteers, giving their time and talent for the good of the community. They guide us in our operations, help monitor the needs of the community, and offer their expertise in various committees that help us do our work. Each member brings a different set of skills and experience in business, nonprofits, and the community.

They deserve our thanks, and to Luann we would all like to extend a warm welcome to our Community Foundation.

Amy Helpenstell left a legacy to the Quad Cities area that is having a tremendous positive impact.

The Amy Helpenstell Foundation gave more than a half-million dollars to area nonprofits in 2011. That’s an astounding gift that is having a tremendously positive impact — today — on people throughout the Quad Cities region.

In today’s Argus/Dispatch, columnist John Marx wrote about the good work Amy is doing, years after her untimely passing.

We’re proud to work with the Board and help administer The Amy Helpenstell Foundation. And our thanks to John Marx for recognizing the good work being done in our community — the legacy of a young woman with a generous heart.

Pleasant Valley Girls Tennis Team members present a check for the David J. Ramnath Foundation Fund, in honor of their late coach. From left to right: Genevieve Kwan (junior at PV), Sarah Huber (junior at PV), Morgan Lamb (freshman at University of Kansas), and Deepak Ramnath.

The girls on the tennis team at Pleasant Valley High School loved their assistant coach, David Ramnath. He was a role model, a mentor, and a man with a great sense of humor.

The entire community was saddened when he passed away in August from pancreatic cancer at age 59.

His family established the David J. Ramnath Foundation Fund to pay for tennis scholarships to PV graduates. The school and the community rallied to the cause.

Members of the girls tennis team made t-shirts and sold them to raise money for the fund. Today, in a short and emotional ceremony at our offices, three team members who were wearing the t-shirts presented a check for $1,024 to David Ramnath’s son, Deepak, who said the family has been touched by the support the community has shown for his father. The ceremony was covered by Mike Ortiz from KWQC-TV.

At the Community Foundation, we are very happy to help establish and honor the legacies of wonderful people such as David Ramnath. The care he showed to the community and to the girls on the PV tennis team is being returned in a shower of love. Even tennis players who have yet to be born will someday know his name, because his fund will help some of them attain their educational goals many years from now.

Happy holidays, indeed.

Recipients of the 2011 Quad City Caring Awards, from left to right: Caleb Enbebrecht (in front), Christine Engebrecht (standing behind Caleb), Ben Engebrecht (behind Christine), Katie Engebrecht, Brian Engebrecht, Karen Platt, Lisa Lopez, Kaylyn Maher, Michael Cole, and Sarah Johnson. They were honored at CFGRB's Annual Celebration, held Sept. 27, 2011 at the Waterfront Convention Center in Bettendorf.

At our Annual Celebration in September, we presented five outstanding volunteers with the Quad City Caring Award. One of the awards went to an entire family — the Engebrecht family of Milan.

For the past 15 years, Christine Engebrecht has taken her kids on weekly trips to deliver meals to home-bound seniors.

Fran Riley heard about them and followed them along on one of their Friday road trips. Our thanks to Fran and KWQC-TV for caring.

You can watch the video by following this link to Fran’s page and clicking on the Engebrecht Family story.

Our Grants Committee met November 16, 2011 to study grant applications and make decisions for our fall grants. Three of the volunteers shown here are, from left to right: Alan Anderson, Marsha Pedersen, and Jacki Guinn.

Thirty nonprofits in the Quad Cities area received a total of $110,000 in fall grants from our Community Foundation. Applications were studied in November, and grant recipients were notified during the past week or so.

Our Foundation awards grants in the spring and the fall, with a committee of area volunteers making the decisions.

Grant dollars come from the Foundation’s Community Impact Fund, which is an endowed community resource funded by donors who want us to address the most pressing community issues. Those issues may change from year to year. The Community Impact Fund provides the Foundation with flexibility to monitor and respond to evolving needs.

The list of Fall Grant Recipients includes:

• Arrowhead Ranch – $2,500 – Digital photocopier.
• Bethany for Children & Families – $5,000 – Virtual private network upgrade.
• Bettendorf Public Library Foundation – $1,000 – Signage for Faye’s Field.
• Casa Guanajuato Quad Cities – $5,000 – Organizational transformation project.
• Central Music Boosters Sponsorship Program – $2,473 – Tunes for Tots.
• Children’s Discovery Center – $2,000 – Music lab.
• Children’s Therapy Center of the QCA – $5,460 – Electronic billing equipment.
• Delmar Fire Station – $7,500 – New construction.
• Family Museum of Arts and Science – $2,000 – Rethink, Reshape, Reinvent – New Learning Environments.
• Friendly House – $5,000 – Cargo van.
• Geneseo Public Library District – $3,650 – Technology training.
• German American Heritage Center – $1,000 – Lighting Our Legacy Pathway – 2012 programming.
• Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities – $5,000 – Office renovation.
• HELP Through Education and Law Program, Inc. – $5,000 – Online legal research for civil legal services.
• Humility of Mary Shelter, Inc. – $1,400 – Improved facilities for veterans and women.
• Jordan Catholic School – $3,775.34 – Elementary technology.
• Juan Diez Rancheros – $5,340 – Indoor arena electrical, lights and exhaust fans.
• Junior Achievement of the Heartland – $1,000 – Seed money for development of new website to generate resources.
• King’s Harvest – $7,500 – Homeless overflow overnight shelter.
• Let’s Band Together – $2,000 – Providing used musical instruments to students in need.
• Mississippi Bend AEA – Bettendorf – $2,500 – Coats for Kids.
• Paws for a Cause – City of DeWitt – $2,500 – Bark for a Park: Westbrook Dog Park.
• Putnam Museum and IMAX Theatre – $5,000 – Putnam Power Mission video production.
• Rebuilding Together – Geneseo/Cambridge – $2,500 – Changing Lives, One Ramp at a Time.
• Rock Island County Historical Society – $4,101.66 – Atkinson-Peek House Carriage House/Clothes Loft Boiler Project.
• Sabula Volunteer Ambulance Service – $6,000 – Lifepack 15 Defibrillator project.
• St. Joseph’s School – $1,000 – iPads for classrooms.
• Scott County Special Olympics – $1,300 – Expansion and reach of program in Scott County.
• Skip-A-Long Child Development Services – $4,000 – Emergency HVAC replacement – Rock Island Campus.
• YWCA of the QC – $7,500 – Window replacement project.

These grants are the direct result of our generous donors, who care for the people of our region. They trust us to manage and invest their donations wisely. As a result, our Community Impact Fund is an ever-deepening pool of funds, strengthening the nonprofit organizations that provide direct services that people need.

Read more in our news release, and if you’re at a nonprofit and may seek a grant in the future, our updated grant guidelines are available on the Grants page of our website.

The Dufour family - front row left to right: Christopher Dufour, Ralph, Ann, Joan Noe. Standing left to right: Bill Dufour, Martina Werner, Marcia Harl, Teresa Price, Michelle Melin, Mary Dufour.

What do you give your parents on their 60^th wedding anniversary when they tell you they don’t want gifts?

The family of Ralph and Ann Dufour decided to give a gift to the community in their parents’ names.

Ralph and Ann were married on November 10, 1951. Ralph was a sheetmetal worker and Ann was a nurse at St. Anthony’s Hospital, which later became Trinity Medical Center. They were involved in their church and all eight of their children received Catholic educations.

“At Sacred Heart School, moms were part of the Mother’s Club and fathers were part of the Dad’s Club,” said Bill Dufour. “Mom was a member of the Club for a long time because she had children at the school for 25 straight years – one child after another. When one got through, it seemed as if another was beginning.”

Sacred Heart School later merged with St. Mary’s to become Seton Catholic School.

As their 60^th anniversary approached in 2011, Ralph and Ann told their children they didn’t want any gifts. The children discussed an appropriate gift for some time, trying to reach a consensus. Then Chris Dufour, who serves on the Board of Catholic Charities, told them about the Community Foundation and the work we do.

The children decided to open the Ralph and Ann Dufour Scholarships for Catholic Education Acorn Fund. They will contribute a minimum of $1,000 a year to the Acorn Fund. Within 10 years, when it reaches $10,000 (it could be sooner depending on the contributions), the Acorn Fund will convert to an endowed fund and will begin providing scholarships to Catholic students in the Illinois Quad Cities area.

“It gives us an opportunity to give back to our parents for everything they gave us,” Bill said.

Imagine Ralph and Ann’s surprise when their children presented them with this gift at their 60^th Anniversary party.

After spending decades involved in the Mothers and Fathers Clubs at Sacred Heart, Ralph and Ann Dufour’s endowed fund will provide scholarships to help students afford a Catholic education. In a way, they will end up having children in Catholic schools for many decades to come.