“She’s Brooklyn, I’m Bronx,” says Stuart Wells of his wife Daphne. Meeting as youth, they were “both shot by cupid’s arrow” at the same time and married after their first year of graduate school. They both deeply value education, having received free college tuition in New York state schools, and later became teachers themselves, each with a 36-year career. Daphne...
Brandon Le, a freshman at UCLA born and raised in Seaside, has always been fascinated by how things work. “I’m really interested in problem solving,” he told us. “Ever since I was a kid, I integrated myself into technology. I grew up liking electronics, and I always wanted to know: what’s behind all that?” Brandon enrolled in challenging computer science...
Thank you to all who attended the 16th Annual Women’s Fund Luncheon on May 5, 2023. The event raised more than $120,000 to uplift local women and girls. Keynote speaker Judy Guzman Krueger inspired attendees to “Dream, Believe & Achieve” and GHGH scholarship recipient Laura Rivera shared her story, thanking Women’s Fund donors for helping her work towards her goals....
Applications Now Open for LEAD 2024 Invest in yourself and your community! Apply for LEAD Institute 2024 by 10/2/23: cfmco.org/LEAD. Want to learn more? Please join us for an in-person information session 8/24. Click the button below to register for the FREE info session held from 10-11 a.m. on August 24th at the Community Foundation for Monterey County: Register About...
The Spring 2023 edition of our Giving Matters newsletter includes a message from Community Foundation for Monterey County President/CEO Dan Baldwin and the latest news: CFMC grants more than $1 million for storm relief Monterey County Gives! raises record $11.2 million Creating a Legacy event recap CFMC honored for COVID relief efforts Donor profile: Gordon Schacher Investing in Leadership – LEAD Institute...
Relief. Recover. Rebuild. by Dan Baldwin, President/CEO Community Foundation for Monterey County This guest commentary was originallly published in the Monterey Herald on March 30, 2023 The past three weeks have been a nightmare for the people of Pajaro. Awakened after midnight on March 11 and told to evacuate, they were offered shelter in evacuation centers in North Monterey County...
Inspired to give by his late wife, Elke, Gordon Schacher started The Elke Junger Making A Difference Fund on the concept of making a difference, one individual at a time. “One day, Elke came home and said, ‘I’ve just been at Target, and a man outside asked me for money. Instead, I asked him what he needed. He said a...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President/CEO Noise. That seems to be the dominant feature of our daily lives in recent months. Noisy tweets. Noisy talking heads. Noisy battles in the media. Noise over standing and kneeling. People arguing over what constitutes patriotism, even while hundreds of thousands of DACA students who want desperately to be part of...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President & Chief Executive Officer I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to wrap my mind around the events in Charlottesville, and the aftermath, which is ongoing. Normally, this space is reserved for addressing topics of direct relevance to our work at the CFMC, so the question becomes how marchers in...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President & Chief Executive Officer We think of housing as an inalienable right. We get up. Work. Go home to a house or apartment we might own or rent. Whatever we can afford. For many folks in Monterey County, it’s not that simple. The unfortunate reality in many parts of California, and certainly...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President/CEO There’s talk of doing away with the Johnson Amendment, a law that prohibits nonprofits, including churches, from endorsing political candidates. Divides Church and State, Clamps Partisan Endorsements In place since 1954, the Johnson Amendment has created a bright line in the separation of church and state. Ministers, and other religious leaders, are not...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President/CEO Presidential elections typically answer more questions than they ask. However, the 2016 election seems to have put a lot of the country in a wait-and-see holding pattern on just about every aspect of governance as we’ve come to know it. Health care. Foreign policy. Immigration. The environment. The economy. As...
Monterey County Giving by Dan Baldwin, President/CEO Community Foundation for Monterey County Year-end always seems to prompt thinking about what was accomplished over the past 12 months. Our lives run at such warp speeds, that we move from one item to the next to the next, and so on. Every now and then we just need to take a breath and...
Dan Baldwin, President & CEO, Community Foundation for Monterey County (photo by Bradley Zeve, Monterey County Weekly) Disasters don’t create character; they reveal it. The Soberanes Fire has made clear that the residents of Monterey County are resilient and caring. Certainly, one of the reasons we choose to live here is our wonderful outdoors, including the rugged and beautiful landscape of...
Thank you to all who attended the 16th Annual Women’s Fund Luncheon on May 5, 2023. The event raised more than $120,000 to uplift local women and girls. Keynote speaker Judy Guzman Krueger inspired attendees to “Dream, Believe & Achieve” and GHGH scholarship recipient Laura Rivera shared her story, thanking Women’s Fund donors for helping her work towards her goals....
Applications Now Open for LEAD 2024 Invest in yourself and your community! Apply for LEAD Institute 2024 by 10/2/23: cfmco.org/LEAD. Want to learn more? Please join us for an in-person information session 8/24. Click the button below to register for the FREE info session held from 10-11 a.m. on August 24th at the Community Foundation for Monterey County: Register About...
The Spring 2023 edition of our Giving Matters newsletter includes a message from Community Foundation for Monterey County President/CEO Dan Baldwin and the latest news: CFMC grants more than $1 million for storm relief Monterey County Gives! raises record $11.2 million Creating a Legacy event recap CFMC honored for COVID relief efforts Donor profile: Gordon Schacher Investing in Leadership – LEAD Institute...
Relief. Recover. Rebuild. by Dan Baldwin, President/CEO Community Foundation for Monterey County This guest commentary was originallly published in the Monterey Herald on March 30, 2023 The past three weeks have been a nightmare for the people of Pajaro. Awakened after midnight on March 11 and told to evacuate, they were offered shelter in evacuation centers in North Monterey County...
Inspired to give by his late wife, Elke, Gordon Schacher started The Elke Junger Making A Difference Fund on the concept of making a difference, one individual at a time. “One day, Elke came home and said, ‘I’ve just been at Target, and a man outside asked me for money. Instead, I asked him what he needed. He said a...
Trusted local foundations have already granted a combined $1.8 million for storm and flood relief and recovery since January Aptos & Monterey, CA – The Community Foundation for Monterey County (CFMC) and Community Foundation Santa Cruz County (CFSCC) each activated funds to support storm and flood relief efforts when the first winter storms hit in early January. Both the Monterey...
The Southern Monterey County Foundation (SMCF) granted $23,815 in its most recent round of grantmaking to 14 organizations serving King City and points south. The SMCF is an affiliate fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County that has granted $192,000 since 2014 to projects and programs benefiting Southern Monterey County communities. An advisory board of local community members provides...
