POINT PLEASANT — Our Community’s Foundation, the Mason County Community Foundation, joins more than 700 community foundations nationwide to celebrate charitable giving during National Community Foundations Week, Nov. 16-20. Community Foundations Week began in 1989 with a proclamation from former president George H.W. Bush and congressional briefing about community foundation activities. The observance encourages donors seeking to maximize their philanthropic dollars awareness of community foundations’ charitable activities and services. Governor Joe Manchin III recently issued a Proclamation declaring Community Foundations Week in West Virginia, stating that “together we can build a solid foundation and improve our future by creating community legacies that benefit all of West Virginia.”

In 2007, community foundations supplied an estimated $4.1 billion for a variety of nonprofit activities in fields including the arts, education, youth, recreation, health and human services. Locally, citizens working in partnership with the Mason County Community Foundation create permanent charitable funds that care for nonprofit organizations’ needs and other important charitable causes like student scholarships.

“The Mason County Community Foundation holds 15 community grant and scholarship funds that support our area each year with a wide variety of grants for community projects and scholarship assistance for our students,” said Jane Winters, Regional Affiliates Manager for Our Community Foundation. “We invite persons interested in supporting the existing funds, creating new funds, or learning more about MCCF to contact the foundation by e-mail at Jane.Winters@pacfwv.com; or by calling (304) 372-8588; or writing us at MCCF, P.O. Box 66, Point Pleasant, W.Va. 25550.”

Executive Director Judy Sjostedt added, “Growing philanthropy in our region is about local people helping local people; it’s essential to improving our area’s self-sufficiency. Supporting Our Community’s Foundation builds resources critically needed for our communities to be socially, culturally and economically vibrant and self-reliant places. PACF and the Affiliates are a regional enterprise that serves as the Mid-Ohio Valley’s center for philanthropy. We link generations of caring citizens in Calhoun, Doddridge, Gilmer, Jackson, Mason, Roane, Ritchie, Pleasants, Wirt and Wood Counties in West Virginia and Washington County, Ohio. By pulling together and thinking beyond county lines about what’s best for us all, we can dream bigger and do more. About 1,900 persons partnered with us last year; our progress is directly to their credit and we applaud them. It’s the generosity of local citizens that’s made it possible for us to deliver more than four times in grants than we did ten years ago.”

Community foundations are one of the fastest-growing forms of philanthropy in the U.S., with total assets of more than $50 billion. Every state in the U.S. has at least one community foundation; West Virginia has 29 (counting Affiliate organizations). Although community foundations comprise only one percent of all U.S. grantmaking foundations, they account for over nine percent of all foundation giving. While the community and clients each foundation serves varies according to its donors’ interests and geographic area’s needs, every community foundation shares in the commitment of improving the lives of others.

Across the nation, community foundations help create stronger hometowns as individuals, families and businesses work in partnership with them to craft personal legacies and create permanent support for important local causes. Our Community’s Foundation is among the select group of foundations recognized as having attained National Standards. MCCF encourages folks in Mason County to consider giving back to the community for the charitable causes that are of interest to them, so that our citizens can look forward to a more promising future.