The Community Foundation of the Ozarks awarded $11,235 to the Ripley County Senior Center through the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation in partnership with Commerce Trust.
The grant is designated for kitchen appliances to help with food needs, including needs related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a press release from CFO.
The senior center received one of 16 Coover Regional Grants, which totaled $250,000 and were presented via Zoom on Thursday, April 16.
The area is served by the Ripley County Community Foundation, one of the CFO’s 49 affiliate foundations.
The CFO staff and grantmaking committee worked with recipients to provide flexibility if funds needed to be repurposed for COVID-19-related needs.
“The Coover Charitable Foundation is so proud to provide this much-needed annual grantmaking opportunity for rural Missouri,” said Commerce Trust Senior Vice President Jill Reynolds. “A hallmark of philanthropy is its creative and flexible approach to funding, which is essential this year for many of these grantees extending their resources to support COVID-19 efforts in their communities.”
The grants are made possible through the generosity of the late Julia Dorothy Coover, who worked for Commerce Bank for 30 years. She established the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation in 1992 to honor her husband’s memory. Since then, the Coover Charitable Foundation has awarded about $5.95 million in grants to nonprofit agencies and rural schools across the Ozarks.
The Community Foundation of the Ozarks is a regional public charitable foundation established in 1973 that provides asset and resource development, grantmaking and public leadership through a network of donors, 49 affiliate foundations and more than 600 nonprofit partners across central and southern Missouri.