The Kitchen Challenge exceeds $200,000 goal

Community Foundation of the Ozarks announced results of The Kitchen Challenge, a community-wide effort to sustain The Kitchen in the face of cuts in federal grants, according to a release from the foundation.

Approximately $300,000 was raised against a goal of $200,000. Community contributions made up $250,000 of the total, while a matching challenge grant of $50,000 from the Thomas H. and Josephine Baird Memorial Fund supplied the rest, according to the release.

The awards were announced at a luncheon June 3 at Highland Springs Country Club.

Contributions totaling $108,000 from the C.W. Titus Foundation and a religious organization contributed to the foundation's goals being exceeded, the release said.

At the luncheon, the foundation also announced that it would form affiliate foundations in Lockwood and Buffalo, and that it would establish 24 new charitable funds within the foundation.

Individual donors and organizations established funds of different amounts, each with a charitable purpose.

Most of the new funds are permanent endowment funds with purposes ranging from a fund to provide teacher education about the Holocaust to an unrestricted fund by Mercantile Bank, which allows the foundation to award grants meeting existing and emerging community needs, the release stated.

Community nonprofit groups receiving discretionary grants were also announced. The total of all grants and distributions for the past year is approximately $932,000.

The Community Foundation manages more than 190 charitable funds totaling approximately $23.7 million.

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