WWW.CFSJC.ORG • (574) 232-0041 • 205 W. JEFFERSON BLVD., SUITE 610 • SOUTH BEND, IN 46601

JUNE 2015 CONNECTING PEOPLE WHO CARE WITH CAUSES THAT MATTER

Give Local St. Joseph County: We Asked, and You Gave. BIG.On May 5, our community came together to Give Local St. Joseph County, raising more than $6.73 million for local charities.

We’ve always believed it, and now we have the proof: St. Joseph County is an exceptionally generous place. On Tuesday, May 5, our community donated more than $6.73 million to support the 53 local charities that participated in Give Local St. Joseph County, the 24-hour giving event hosted by the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County.

WHAT A DAY! Thanks to well-coordinated, effective social media campaigns, the efforts of local media, and promotional partnerships throughout the community, everyone knew that May 5 was the day to give.

Participating nonprofit organizations did an excellent job of raising awareness with events that ranged from LOGAN’s Clint Bolser Basketball Challenge to El Campito Child Development Center’s bounce house at University Park Mall. Although the weather prevented us from hosting the “Fridays by the Fountain”-style event we’d initially planned, the “Drive-Thru” Donation Station in front of the Morris Performing Arts Center was a popular spot for donors and friends all day long.

HIGHLIGHTS

continued on p. 2

Representatives from the more than 50 charities that took part in Give Local St. Joseph County took a short break on May 5 to pose for a group photo on South Bend’s Jon R. Hunt Plaza.

We’ve always believed it, and now we have the proof: St. Joseph County is an exceptionally generous place.

Final applications for the 2016 Leighton Award for Nonprofit Excellence are due at the Community Foundation on Wednesday, July 1, 2015.This $150,000 endowment challenge grant, which also includes a $25,000 cash prize, will be awarded competitively to a St. Joseph County nonprofit demonstrating superior leadership, management, and programming. To learn more about the Leighton Award for Nonprofit Excellence, visit www.cfsjc.org or contact Angela Butiste, Program Director, at (574) 232-0041.

Winners of this year’s Lilly Endowment Community Scholarships are Joan Becker, Marian High School; Emily Beach, La Lumiere School; Ryan Kulwicki, John Glenn High School; and Dana Moryl, The Indiana Academy. This highly competitive award provides recipients with four-year, full-tuition scholarships and a book stipend for the Indiana college or university of their choice. The Community Foundation received 75 outstanding applications from 14 schools. Eight of the applicants were ranked first in their graduating classes.

You’ll find a full list of winners of our Laidig Community Service Scholarships and our Charles Martin “Touch a Life” Scholarship at www.cfsjc.org. The Community Foundation holds 56 scholarship funds, providing over $600,000 a year to help scores of local students attend college.

The “Drive-Thru” Donation Station outside the Morris drew hundreds of gifts throughout the day on May 5.

COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY • PAGE 2

WE ASKED, AND YOU GAVE continued from p. 1

What a great day! “Joyful” is the word that comes to mind. So many people experienced the day as an abundant outpouring of love, generosity, and community caring. If I could sum up the most common responses in a single phrase, it would be “Wow! What a community!”

Thank you for being a very real part of this success. It all started with a $1.5 million opportunity from Lilly Endowment which was doubled by the ready and willing leadership of a small number of people and organizations to create a $3 million matching pool. This provided the motivation for more than 50 wonderful participating charities to reach out to people throughout our community and beyond for their support.

The result was phenomenal. The total campaign achieved over $6.73 million from nearly 5,500 contributions. I will be inspired for the rest of my days by the many individual examples of leadership, generosity and extraordinary effort that I personally witnessed (including watching our amazing staff in action). I know the participating charities feel the same.

The results of this day will live on!

Thanks from Rose

Throughout our community, people celebrated the important work done by our local nonprofits—and did their part by making nearly 5,500 gifts over the course of the day.

THE RESULTS Give Local St. Joseph County raised more than $6.73 million for our community’s nonprofit organizations. Of that, $2,580,000 went directly to the participating organizations, and $4,150,000 went into the endowments of those organizations.

Give Local St. Joseph County finished third among the 180 communities that participated in Give Local America campaigns across the country, with Seattle and an eight-county region near Charleston, SC, taking the top two spots. Six local organizations—the CASIE Center, the Community Foundation’s Greatest Needs Fund, Habitat for Humanity of St. Joseph County, Hope Ministries, South Bend Youth Symphony Orchestras, and Women’s Care Center—were among the top ten most successful charities out of the pool of 9,000 that

You’ll find all the details, including final totals for the organizations that participated in Give Local St. Joseph County, at www.GiveLocalSJC.org.

Volunteers from Habitat for Humanity, the YWCA, Food Bank of Northern Indiana, and the United Way at the WNDU-TV Phone Bank

participated nationally.

OUR APPRECIATION This tremendous effort was possible because of the support of our Major Sponsors: The Cressy Foundation; Frank Family Fund; Dean & Sherri Goodwin; Charles & Anne Hillman Family; Judd Leighton Foundation; Jon & Sonja Laidig Foundation; Mary Alice, Regina, & George Resnik Family; Jerry Thoma & Meg Auth; Barbara K. Warner; the James M. & Marjorie H. Wilson Charitable Trust, and Anonymous. Schurz Communications was our Premier Media Sponsor. We also thank Burkhart Advertising, Federated Media, Leadership South Bend/Mishawaka Class 41, Martin’s Supermarkets, Morris Performing Arts Center, South Bend Cubs, WNDU-TV, WNIT-TV, and WVPE-FM. Give Local St. Joseph County was made possible in part by a $1.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. as part of its Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow (GIFT) Initiative.

—Rose Meissner, president

Six local organizations were among the top ten most successful charities out of the pool of 9,000 that participated nationally.

PAGE 3

Grant dollars from the Community Foundation’s Milton Fund support training for local nursing home staff.

It’s a universal experience: You hear an old song, and the familiar notes and lyrics “take you back” to a first date, a road trip, an old friend. Music has an uncanny ability to evoke the past, and a new program called “Music & Memory” uses the neuroscience behind this to help Alzheimer’s and dementia patients reconnect with the present.

Using a model based on decades of research, the “Music & Memory” program trains nursing home staff and volunteers to create personalized playlists of music for residents who suffer from memory disorders. These playlists are loaded onto iPods and other digital devices so that residents can listen and remember, recapturing a sense of self that can help them reconnect with the outside world.

That sense of “re-connecting” has many benefits: Residents using the program show fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety, and are less likely to have behavioral problems.

A recent grant from the Community Foundation’s Milton Fund has made it possible for local nursing facilities to implement “Music & Memory.” One of the first to launch this program has been Healthwin, in South Bend. Karen Martindale, Healthwin’s volunteer coordinator, partnered with JoAnn

Burke, a professor in the Department of Social Work and Gerontology at Saint Mary’s College, to pair 14 of Burke’s junior social work majors with Healthwin residents. The students worked with Martindale, other staff, and residents’ family members to create playlists, drawing on big band, rock-n-roll, religious, and other popular music from the past.

Student Stephanie Aguilera was paired with Timothy, a resident with advanced dementia. She sits beside him in one of Healthwin’s social spaces, cueing up an iPod as she explains how she tested songs with Timothy to build his playlist.

“When his eyes would light up, or when he’d start tapping his foot, I could tell that he liked that song,” Stephanie says.

As Stephanie speaks, Timothy’s face is impassive and motionless, his eyes half closed. Then, she presses the button on the iPod, and the sounds of a young Elvis Presley singing “Jailhouse Rock” can be heard. Timothy turns his head, listening. Slowly, he comes to life: A smile moves across his face, and his hands drum out a rhythm to the King’s 1957 hit.

Music & Memory Program Makes Big Impact

While music favorites differ from resident to resident—it might be “Sentimental Journey,” Jerry Lee Lewis, or “How Great Thou Art”—Martindale says that the response is the same. Residents look up, smile, and engage with a world that previously seemed very distant.

“It’s been the best experience of my life, seeing the change in our residents as they interact with the students and the music,” says Martindale. She pauses, and takes a deep breath before continuing. “I get very emotional about it.”’

REAL Services, our local Area Agency on Aging, recognized the efforts of the Healthwin team by naming it “Volunteer Group of the Year” as part of the 2015 Age of Excellence Awards this past May. Several other local nursing facilities plan to begin implementing “Music & Memory” later in the year.

Saint Mary’s student Vanessa Maholland shares some swing with Gertrude, a Healthwin resident with dementia, as part of the “Music & Memory” program.

Residents who are involved with the “Music & Memory” program show fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.

“It’s been the best experience of my life, seeing the change in our residents as they interact with the students and the music,” says Martindale.

P.O. BOX 837SOUTH BEND, IN 46624

Non Profit Org.

U.S. Postage

PAID

South Bend, IN

Permit No. 360

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

PLAY-ALONG RETURNS

We’re back at the Chris Wilson Pavilion in South Bend’s Potawatomi Park for the sixth year in a row, with a show every Saturday evening in August.

The first event of the Community Foundation Performing Arts Series will take place Saturday, August 1, as Darrel Tidaback’s Twin Cities Jazz Orchestra takes the stage for an evening of “Big Band”-style music. From there, each consecutive Saturday evening will feature a performing arts event: On August 8, Southold Dance Theatre will present an evening of dance, featuring their best students and two guest dancers; on August 15, South Bend Civic Theatre will perform hits from their past, present, and future musicals, paired with brief dramatic readings from the texts that inspired them; on August 22, Maestro Tsung Yeh and the South Bend

Symphony Orchestra will perform a full concert, featuring this year’s Community Play-Along [see sidebar for more details]; and on August 29, the series will conclude with an evening of large- and small-scale vocal ensemble performance from IUSB’s Raclin School of the Arts.

All events are free of charge and open to the public, and begin at 7 p.m. Grab a lawn chair and a blanket, pack a picnic dinner, and come join us for a wonderful evening of performance. For more details, visit www.cfsjc.org or follow us on Facebook.

Performing Arts Series Set for August

One of the highlights of the Community Foundation Performing Arts Series—the Community Play-Along with the SBSO

Calling all amateur musicians who have ever dreamed of playing with a professional symphony orchestra: This is your chance!

For the third consecutive year, the Community Foundation is hosting a Community Play-Along with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra as part of our concert on August 22 at Potawatomi Park. If you or someone you know might like to join this year’s Play-Along (we’ll be playing the “Anvil Chorus” from Verdi’s Il Trovatore!), visit www.cfsjc.org to register and download the music. This free opportunity—which drew 50 musicians last year for the “1812 Overture” performance—includes two rehearsals with Maestro Tsung Yeh and the South Bend Symphony, as well as the performance. Space is limited, so register today!