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Over 35 years ago, the Downtown Optimist Club of Evansville saw the need to establish a foundation for members wishing to make
monetary contributions to our club. The purpose was to allow our club to help youth, and organizations serving youth in our area through financial contributions to
them.
Many members have included our foundation in their wills and subsequently the financial resources have grown to the size that enables our
foundation to award numerous scholarships and grants annually. The earnings are dispersed each year while the principal amount remains intact. Our foundation has
awarded nearly $350,000 in grants and scholarships since it's inception.
We solicite organizations, whose main purpose is to serve youth, to apply through our application for the grants and scholarships. After review by the
foundation committee, the earnings are given to the organziations at our weekly meetings. In 2017, we gave almost $20,000 to numerous
organizations.
Our largest donation was to Camp Carson in 2014. We donated money to build one of their new cabins - Aztec.
Our foundation's largest annual financial grant is from the Thomas and Evelyn Ingle Scholarship.
Click here to read Thank-You Letters from our
recipients.
The foundation committee is comprised of these members:
President - |
Ken Dennis |
Secretary - |
Ron Eberhart |
Treasurer - |
|
Club President |
Michael Burk |
Members: |
Tim Deisher |
|
Dan Phillips |
|
Jeff Olson
|
|
Karen Morris
|
|
Mike Burk
|
|
|