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Highland Park Community Foundation |
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Highland Park Community Foundation |
2009 Grants Set a Record
Seeking New Project Opportunities
HPHS Students Win at Great Debate
CBO
Prepares 1st Gen Students for College
Jens Jensen Park
Restoration Completed
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HPCF’s 2009 Grants Set A Record
In
2009, the Foundation extended grants totally $114,000 to twenty agencies
and organizations serving the Highland Park-Highwood community. This was
the largest dollar amount ever granted in its seventeen years of
existence. For a complete listing go to “Grants and Scholarships”. Seeking New Projects and Programs HPCF seeks out opportunities to fund new projects and programs that organizations cannot fund otherwise. They must be significant and of measurable benefit; and a minimum 51% of persons served must be residents of Highland Park or Highwood. If you have such a project we encourage you to submit a grant application, the form for which can be downloaded from “Grants Process”.
HPHS Students Win at Great Debates For the past nine years HPCF has provided funding for Highland Park High School students to attend, participate and compete at the National Hispanic Leadership Institute’s Great Debates. In a best-ever showing, this year five participants achieved awards and three advanced to compete in the National Great Debate at the University of Texas in Austin. The Great Debate allows high school freshmen, selected for their academic achievement, the opportunity to test and improve their written and verbal skills through organized discussions and debates. Tom Koulentes, HPHS Vice Principal, observes that “after participation students come back to school empowered and confident as leaders; and a week on a college campus ignites further interest college education. The Community Foundation grants have enabled students without the financial means, to attend this program.”
Great Debate winners are
(l to r)
CBO Prepares 1st Gen Students for College A new program added to the foundation’s grants in 2009 is College Bound Opportunities which provides adult coaching for college selection, application procedures and funding sources for first generation college prospects from Highland Park and Highwood. Founded only three years ago, CBO currently has 51 scholars – 30 in college and 21 in high school, 19 of which are at HPHS. The program is designed to guide through the college experience outstanding students of moderate means who are usually the first generation of their families to be college prospects. CBO college scholars are attending institutions such as Lake Forest University, Knox College, Marquette University and the University of Iowa.
Jens Jensen Park Restoration Completed One of the functions of the Highland Park Community Foundation is to aid major projects of citizens by serving as a collection vehicle, fiscal advisor and funds manager. The foundation partnered with the Friends of Jens Jensen Park and Park District of Highland Park to enable the renovation of the park in the heart of the Ravinia district, across from the train station at St. Johns and Roger Williams. Jensen, a Ravinia resident, designed the park in 1924, but over time the original design was lost to modifications. When “Friends” was formed to raise funds for the restoration, it used HPCF as its collection vehicle so that donations to the project were tax deductible. The Friends endowment for the maintenance of the park continues to be managed by the foundation along with its own endowment.
The
renovated Jens Jensen Park
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