Foundation has home at last
BUCYRUS -- The Bucyrus Area Community Foundation finally has a home of its own.
After five years of searching and operating out of various extra spaces, the BACF cut the ribbon on its new home Thursday, taking over the former library Annex and KFC at the corner of East Mansfield Street and North Lane Street.
"This has been a long process," said BACF Director Janet Pry. "They are just such a great source of funding for various community endeavors."
The BACF, which contributed about $400,000 to Crawford County last year, was conceived through the Timken Foundation.
Pry said Timken plant manager Bob Gulling challenged the community in 1984 to raise $150,000, and said he would donate $200,000.
"It took until 1986, but by then it had $400,000 and the BACF gave its first grant out in 1987," Pry said. "In the first 10 years, 70 if not 80 percent of the grants we were giving out was going to the schools.
"(Timken) got tired of dealing with all of the requests for the $500 grants, so they wanted to give that over to the BACF so they could deal with the bigger grants. Right now all five schools that we work with have endowments of more than $100,000, so they all have $4,000 they can use each year how they want to."
The BACF is geographically limited to Crawford County, with a few exceptions.
It has donated grants to the library, Bucyrus Community Hospital, Crawford 20/20 Vision, the Bucyrus YMCA, the Humane Society and more. BACF also donated money for the new building at the fairgrounds, five of the six county schools, the American Red Cross and the Crawford College Connection.
"The BACF is more than a source of very important funding," said Crawford County Economic Development Director Dave Williamson. "Everyone has heard stories of people invading their endowment when the company gets into trouble with every intention of paying it back, but with us that doesn't happen."
The BACF is not just for the very rich.
"If someone wanted to start a scholarship fund, they can come to us and we will make it part of our investments and we will pay it out for them," Pry said.
The BACF has a competitive grant cycle that runs twice a year.
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