Yates Community Endowment Raises $221,300

With room to spare, the new Yates Community Endowment has met a $100,000 challenge grant from an Ohio-based family foundation, which will allow it to offer its first grants in summer 2012.

Caring residents and business leaders gave and pledged $121,300 to match last June’s dollar-for-dollar challenge from the Nord Family Foundation.

Matching gift donors included Grand Central Plaza, G.C.P. Discount Liquors & WInes, The Birkett Mills and Carey’s Farm & Home Centers, William G. McGowan Charitable Fund, Inc., and many individuals and families, including the entire all-volunteer Yates Community Endowment advisory board. The gift and challenge dollars have been invested as a permanent endowment for Yates County, with income used to award grants for local purposes.

"I have experienced the warmth and generosity of the people in Yates County since our family moved here three years ago, but I wasn't expecting to be so wildly successful with matching and then exceeding the challenge in such a short time,” said Katie Nord Peterson of Penn Yan, co-chair of the Yates Community Endowment advisory board and a trustee for her family’s foundation. “This shows that we are extremely focused on building this endowment so that Yates County can benefit.”

The first two significant matching gifts made to the endowment fund were $50,000 from Tom and Carolyn Argust of Rochester and the town of Italy and $20,000 from businesses of the Yunis family, longtime residents of Barrington. Tom Argust is co-chair of the advisory board and Bebette Yunis is an advisory board member.

Other members of the Yates Community Endowment advisory board include Rob Corcoran, H. Taylor Fitch, Jeffrey S. Gifford, Rita L. Gow, Amy Hoffman, Ellen O’Neill, Frank P. Strong Jr. and Willie Taaffe.

"The Yates Community Endowment Fund is already having an impact on our community — and we are just beginning,” said Argust. “We are so pleased that as a result of our growing endowment we can launch our first round of grants later this year.” Argust also is a former Board President of Rochester Area Community Foundation, which provides fiduciary and staff support for the new endowment in Yates.

Guidelines and deadlines for grant proposals will be announced this spring.

Raising additional contributions for the Yates Community Endowment will be an ongoing effort to reach a goal of $1 million within a few years, Argust said. 

Click here for more details on the Yates Community Endowment, its history and Yates County grants made by the Community Foundation.