Families encouraged to leave legacy by donating charitable contribution
(Seguin) – After three years, the Seguin Area Community Foundation continues to roll on strong with its mission – a mission that seeks to benefit and improve the quality of life for everyone in the community.
The community foundation recently distributed a total of $42,000 to seven local nonprofit organizations. Wayne Windle, president of the community foundation, says although there were challenges in getting started, it’s important to note how and why the group was first created.
“Originally, there was a small group that included Phil Seidenberger, Wilfred Bartoskewitz, Robert Raetzsch and I got together with them, and they had already gotten the ball moving. Kathy Nossaman was also part of that group and very instrumental and still is and we were looking to do a simple community foundation that could service kind of all the voids in charitable giving in Seguin. So, we began raising money slowly and then we had some large bequests and those helped us really get us to where we are today. That’s the short story,” said Windle.
Since their first round of gifts, Windle says the group has helped to support a couple of dozen organizations.
“We’ve given somewhere between $1,500 to $6,000. I don’t know that we are at 25 organizations yet, but we are close, but we might be over 25 when I think about the fire departments because we gave to eight of those. And it was kind of a classic moment for our community foundation because they were not able to raise money for themselves, the volunteer fire departments because of COVID and so they needed upgraded equipment, maintenance, and a whole variety of things like that so we made those gifts to them,” said Windle.
Those recently presented with a $6,000 check were the Seguin Art League, the Heritage Museum, the Christian Cupboard, Seguin Youth Services, the Seguin Education Foundation, the Navarro Education Foundation, and the Marion Education Foundation.
Windle says the foundation is excited to be available for these organizations.
“We are continuing to build our general fund. We hope that we never have a situation like Uvalde or something like that where we needed to you know put money out into the community for some terrible disaster but it is very common that community foundations respond to things like that and we are able to augment funds that these other 501c(3)s are able to raise and so we are out there trying to help our community. All of the donations that we receive go right back into our community and you have to remember, it’s a tax deduction so this money is not going to Austin or anywhere else. You get the deduction, and the benefit comes right here to your neighbors,” said Windle.
He says their vision for the community foundation is limitless and hopes that other partners will also one day join the cause.
“Many community foundations in larger cities have public, private partnerships. I hope that one day we can get to that and have some public, private partnerships either with the city or the county and have larger projects. There are a variety of ways that they can be involved with the community foundation. They can have their own specific fund where it goes to a specific cause in the community that they like. We prefer the general fund because it grows and can go to any cause as needed. We are hopeful that some of the larger and corporate funds will start to recognize us and help us to grow as well. We haven’t really had the staff to do a lot of very small grants but at some point, we hope to be able to offer specific scholarship type grants and things like that,” said Windle.
Applauding the efforts of the foundation was Doug Parker. Parker was on hand to accept the check on behalf of the Heritage Museum.
“We’ve got a great board of talented directors that come from different backgrounds. Each providing different ideas and effective programs for us. We hated to lose our long term, loving John Gesick for 28 years director two years ago. But our directors stepped up. These two ladies here Donna Taylor and Debbie Parker did the bulk of the work and we’ve really come a long way for stability and things look good. Thank you for this. We want to continue preserving the heritage and history and the uniqueness of Guadalupe County and Seguin so thank you very much,” said Parker.
The group currently operates with 11 board of directors. Individuals or families wishing to leave a permanent legacy through charitable giving or who want to be a part of the foundation’s future are asked to contact one of the board members or call 830-379-1122. They may also visit seguinfoundation.org.
