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74 2O24–2O2 5 GU I D E to Y E L LOW S P R I NG S When village resident and philanthropist Edwin K. Foos died in 1968, Jim Mitchell, then-president of Miami Deposit Bank and trustee of Foos’ will, began conceiving of a better way for people to give to the general welfare of Yellow Springs. After Mitchell himself died unexpectedly in 1974 — just as he was garnering local support for the creation of a community foundation — his wife, Dorothy, took up his mantle. She assembled what would become the first board of trustees for the Yellow Springs Community Foundation: Perry Stewart, who succeeded Mitchell as president of Miami Deposit; George Asakawa, president of Vernay Labs; Hardy Trolander, president of Yellow Springs Instruments; and Philip Ault - man, Village solicitor. Within a year of its incorporation in 1974, the foundation had $10,000 in unrestricted grants as well as an endowment for the maintenance of the Glen Helen Building, now named the Vernet Ecological Center. The year after, the nascent foundation issued its first three grants: $1,000 to both Antioch College and the Yellow Springs Senior Center and $579 to Glen Helen. As the years went by, the Yellow Springs Community Foundation’s assets grew from an influx of charitable dona - tions from local residents and, in turn, continued funding village projects and groups. To name a few early milestones: Chamber Music in Yellow Springs received a $2,000 grant in 1987; The Antioch School, $10,000 the same year; and Friends Care Community Center got $10,000 in 1988 to build out a memory care unit. In the new millennium, the foundation’s grants took a much larger scale. After awarding the Village $200,000 for the maintenance and development of the Center for Business and Education, then another $200,000 to Antioch College to reopen the Foundry Theater upon the college’s revival in 2011, the foundation issued its largest grant to date: In 2019, it awarded Antioch $600,000 for a stabilization project that returned heat to the iconic Antioch Hall, also known as Main Building. Though the sizable grant indeed returned warmth to the shuttered building, con- siderable additional funding is needed to bring the build- ing back to usefulness, with estimates ranging from $7.5 million to $20 million, accord- ing to past News reports. As Cox noted, Antioch is far from the only local school that receives the foundation’s support. The intergenerational Miller Fellow and Encore programs, the student-run philanthropic Youth Action Board, Bulldog sports boosters, educational endowments and scholar- ship programs are all avenues through which the foundation continues to funnel money into local education. This year alone, 45 Yellow Springs High School students will receive scholarships underwritten by the founda- tion. According to Cox, the scholarship program has $50,000 in funds. CHANGES AND CHALLENGES Entreating more donors to fund more village projects and ideas has been a prior- ity for Cox since she took the helm of the Community Foundation in 2016. She was hired as the organization’s first executive director and came on board with the priority to “focus on more donors and provide them with more options to give.” Additionally, Cox began seeking donors from beyond the village limits. “That’s been a huge shift for the foundation in the last seven years,” she said. “Now, over 30% of our donations come from outside the walls of 45387. There are people who love Yellow Springs who don’t live here, so I’m always asking, ‘How do we get them engaged?’” By bringing more donors into the fold and broadening the ways in which they can give — to specific endow- ments, grants, scholarships and fields of interest, to name a few — has provided the Community Foundation with greater flexibility over the years, Cox said. “The needs and priori- ties of the village are always shifting,” Cox noted. “It’s important for us to keep our finger on that pulse and meet Yellow Springs where it’s at.” The local onset of the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the foundation to do exactly that. In addition to organizing teams of volunteers to keep food pantries stocked and needy neighbors provided for, the foundation launched sev - eral economic relief initiatives. “You could go to the credit union, ask for money and get it right away — no questions asked,” Cox said. Throughout the pandemic, the foundation disbursed approximately $150,000 in loans to Yellow Springs residents and businesses from newly created emer- gency funds. As an example, the foundation provided the necessary fund to the YS News to cover the costs of printing a month’s worth of newspapers for every 45387 resident at the beginning of the pandemic. In the years since the threat of COVID-19 has waned, those various relief funds merged into a single “YS Emergency Fund,” which according to Cox, contin- ues to allow the foundation to help those in need at a moment’s notice. • Bobbie Haines • Dawn Bradstreet, CPA • Mark Bradstreet, CPA www.bradstreetcpas.com B radstreet & a ssociates , i nc . Certified Public Accountants We offer a full array of services, yet we’re small enough to take a personal interest in each of our clients.