| Willmar, Minn. – The Willmar Area Community Foundation (WACF) today initiated their support of the Willmar Area Response Fund with a grant of $50,000. The purpose of the fund is to support the local community in times of crisis, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. The Fund will focus on wide-scale community initiatives to help meet daily needs of our community and help to sustain our local non-profit organizations with post-emergency calls of action. To make a contribution to the fund, visit https://www.communitygiving.org/donate/willmar-area-response-fund. Sara Carlson, Executive Director of the Willmar Area Community Foundation stated, “This is your community foundation in action. This is philanthropy at work. We are on the practice field and trying to live out our mission: Engage People, Connect Resources, Build Community. The Willmar Area Response Fund allows us to focus on local needs in our community due to COVID-19. The Willmar Area Community Foundation is here to help. We are all in this together and together we can make a difference.” The WACF continues to work with local agencies to identify the greatest needs in the community and disseminate the funds to local 501c(3) non-profits, governmental and faith-based organizations. With the Willmar Area Response Fund donations, the Foundation has been able to support and designate funds to Operation Gap Week Feeding Project that is serving New London-Spicer Schools and Willmar Public Schools students free breakfast and lunch daily from March 23 to March 27,2020 during the spring break closure for both school districts; Operation Child Care that is working to keep licensed childcare providers supplied with critical food and sanitation supplies via four local grocers; and Protection for the Vulnerable: Coffee Filter Round Up where WACF provided the first 1,000 coffee filters that will be used in the creation of filtering fabric masks for local at-risk individuals in an innovative DIY mask project designed by a local physician. The Willmar Area Community Foundation (WACF) attracts and administers charitable funds for the benefit of the local Willmar area. Since 1998, WACF has grown to over $19.1 million in assets and awarded $8.8 million in grants to nonprofits. The WACF is governed by a local board of directors and is a partner of CommunityGiving, which is a collaborative of community foundations united under a single framework to create efficiencies that maximize the impact of our donors. Collectively, CommunityGiving administers nearly 850 funds totaling more than $150 million. Learn more at CommunityGiving.org/Willmar. |
Willmar Area Community Foundation Grants $50,00 to the Willmar Area Response Fund
March 23, 2020
Posted in News Release