FOUNDATION
Ethan Braunstein MD, Board Chair, Forest Highlands Foundation
partners with whom we have a long standing relationship, such as Flagstaff Shelter Services, Flagstaff Family Food Center, and Housing Solutions/Sharon Manor This will give us more agility in handling rapidly occurring community crises such as COVID, wildfire, flood, and as we’ve all noticed recently, the effect of inflation on local food supplies. This process at some point may necessitate some sort of formal separation of Foundation funds between those monies earmarked for Community Foundation distribution and contingency funds earmarked for direct grants by the Foundation to our human services nonprofits. In other Foundation news, plans for the Denise Martinez Memorial Tournament continue apace. The theme, as you’re already noticed, is rock ’n roll, and one of Alice Cooper’s autographed guitars will be auctioned at the event. Also, we’re happy to see that the Forest Highlands Youth Leadership Council has been organized, and we look forward to working with them on a backpack project for Killip School as well as many other projects in the future. Jean Brown will be our liaison with the Youth Leadership Council. Finally please keep in mind our donor thank you event on June 25. This has been sponsored by an anonymous Foundation member, so no Foundation money will be expended. I’ll be back with another update next month. As usual, if you have any questions about the Foundation, please contact me <beigestein@gmail.com> or any of the other Board members.
May marked the opening of the new Flagstaff Shelter Services (FSS) facility at the old Crown (Howard Johnson’s) motel on east Route 66. The housewarming was celebrated by FSS, local politicians, and representatives of local Flagstaff nonprofits. Several members of the Foundation Board were in attendance. By the time of the housewarming, 12 individuals or families were already living in the new transitional housing, with space for 46 more. There will be onsite services including North Country Health Care, the Guidance Center, Southwest Behavioral Health Services, and the Flagstaff Family Food Center. The project and motel renovation cost $6.19 million, paid for by the Arizona Department of Housing, The Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation, and, of course, the Forest Highlands Foundation. The Crown Railroad Cafe (a Flagstaff institution) was also very generous with support. FHF provided the initial $50,000 in seed money, and this was leveraged into the entire $6.19 million cost of the entire project, so the FHF’s ability to be in the right place at the right time was instrumental in assuring that it all happened. This marks a bit of change from our normal funding process. In the past, about 95% of our funding of local nonprofits came through a collaborative process with the Arizona Community Foundation Flagstaff and other local foundations. This served the purpose of coordinating funding with other groups, but the emergence of COVID necessitated an approach that would get the funds to where they’re needed more expeditiously. We have recently concentrated on directly evaluating requests for funding by our partners, and over the past 2 years we have distributed about $200,000 without going through the Community Foundation. Therefore, only about 75% of grant money has been distributed though the Community Foundation in the last 2 years. In the future,although we will continue to work extensively with the Arizona Community Foundation, we anticipate expanding our outreach to those
Ethan Braunstein MD Board Chair, Forest Highlands Foundation beigestein@gmail.com
PS: Thanks to Larry Aldrich for becoming our liaison with the HOA Board.
SAVE THE DATE
DENISE MARTINEZ MEMORIAL PRO-AM Monday, August 15
CLICK HERE
Signup for the Tournament and/or Sponsor Today!
VOICE IN THE PINES | JUNE 2022 4
Powered by FlippingBook