Ozarks Family YMCA — which operates one facility at Cabool — accepted a $11,350 grant from the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Regional Grantmaking Program to support an employment training and hiring program aimed at teens from the Seymour, Mountain Grove, Willow Springs and Cabool areas.
The Community Foundation of the Ozarks, in partnership with Commerce Trust Co., presented $200,000 in grants to 16 organizations working on rural poverty issues across the Ozarks at a Feb. 8 ceremony at Commerce Trust in Springfield.
The goal of the new Ozarks Family YMCA program is to enhance the employment prospects and training of local teens. The YMCA will instruct participants on the basics of job applications and resumes, help them assemble their materials, and then eventually hire a number of the teens for YMCA positions.
“By getting training, and then getting the experience, when they’re 19, 20 or 21 and moving on, they’ll have something to give them a leg up,” said Ozarks Family YMCA executive director Derek Chambers.
The Coover Grant Committee considered more than $498,000 in requests in selecting the agencies for this year’s funding.
“These 2013 Coover awards support hunger and nutritional program training, housing and shelter needs, medical prescription and dental services, children-centered needs and human services program strategies across the region,” CFO Board Chair and Commerce Trust Vice President Jill Reynolds said.
These grants are made possible through the generosity of the late Julia Dorothy Coover, who worked for Commerce Bank for 30 years. She established the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation in 1992 to honor her husband’s memory. With this year’s awards, the Coover Charitable Foundation surpasses $3.6 million in grantmaking across the Ozarks since its founding.
The CFO, a public charitable organization with assets totaling $210 million as of Dec. 31, 2012, includes a network of 44 affiliate foundations, including the Greater Seymour Area Foundation, the Mountain Grove Area Community Foundation and the Willow Springs Community Foundation.