Centre County Community Foundation

Foundation Stories

American Red Cross Fund: The State College Chapter of the American Red Cross was formed 92 years ago by Katherine Sparks, wife of Dr. Edwin Sparks who was then the president of the Pennsylvania State College. “Katherine was active in a number of organizations,” says executive director Virginia Brown “And she decided that it would be a good idea, locally, to form a chapter of the American Red Cross. So they met in the old chapel of the former Old Main Building in April, 1917. We actually still have the minutes book from that original meeting…; Read full story
Houtz-Meyers-Rose American Legion Post 867 Scholarship Fund: “We’ve been collecting this money for a long time,” says Mark Milliron, member of the American Legion Post 867 in Pleasant Gap. “Ten or 12 years, at least.” The initial contributions for the Legion fund were typically made in increments of $25, and the idea was to use the money for scholarships…; Read full story
Back to School Program: Salvation Army of State College: In 2001, when Patricia Niedermyer, AKA “Captain Pat,” took over the Back to School Program for the Salvation Army of State College, there was one change that she wanted made immediately. The program, which provides a backpack as well as school clothes and supplies to needy children in the area, had previously provided vouchers to the children’s families instead of supervising the purchases themselves. “With the voucher, you never knew what they were doing with it,” Niedermyer explains. “This way we are very accountable.”…; Read full story
Boalsburg Bicentennial Exhibits: Boalsburg Heritage Museum: On April 7, 2009, the Boalsburg Heritage Museum celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Village of Boalsburg by unveiling several Bicentennial Exhibits, thanks, in part, to a $1000 grant from the Centre County Community Foundation. “One of them is a feature on Al Gingrich” says museum board member Earl Kesler. “He was the village blacksmith—a very well-known and well-liked figure. In later years he turned into a furniture maker, so they sort of acknowledge that, too.” The exhibit is entitled Albert E. Gingrich: The Last Blacksmith…; Read full story
Food Bank of the State College Area Inc.: Now in their 27th year of operation, the State College Food Bank was started in 1982 by a small group of parishioners at St. Andrews Episcopal Church. After acquiring non-profit status in 1996, they became officially known as the Food Bank of the State College Area Inc. “Our mission is to provide emergency food to needy families in the State College area and then network with the other food banks in the Centre County region,” says Executive Director Linda Tataliba “Currently we are serving over 200 families a month, which is, in comparison to last year, 10 to 20 more people per month now.”…; Read full story
Habitat for Humanity Tool Fund: “We build homes for low-income folks, and it’s mostly all volunteer labor that we use to construct the homes,” says Tom Mesko, executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Centre County. “With volunteer labor, the tools that we use really take a beating over time because our volunteers don’t have to have any experience using tools at all. We have to continually replace them to make sure that they’re in safe operating order. So we wrote a grant to the Community Foundation and they graciously donated $11,000 that will allow us to slowly replace our tools and update them with new technology.”…; Read full story
Michael Davis Mattil Memorial Scholarship Fund: Edward L. Mattil explains that the idea for a scholarship fund had its origins back in 1931 during the Great Depression. He was in eighth grade at the time, and living in State College, where his family had moved from Williamsport several years earlier. His older brother Karl, an outstanding student, was offered a $50 college scholarship and his parents, neither of whom had much formal education, decided that he should accept the offer. They became focused on providing as much support, financial and otherwise, as possible to ensure that their son could pursue a college degree. Karl would eventually earn three degrees at Penn State, including a Ph.D. in bio-chemistry. “I guess he did pretty well,” Mattil says. “They named a building at Texas A&M after him.”…; Read full story
Mountaintop Area Medical Center Association: Several years ago, when the Mountaintop Area Medical Center received a $50,000 government grant to remodel and make repairs on the Snow Shoe facility, they were informed that a building permit would not be necessary. Some remodeling was already completed when work began on the roof last fall. Before long, however, inspectors from the Department of Labor and Industry visited the site and, upon learning that the repairs were was being done without a permit, physically removed the roofer from atop the building…; Read full story
Old Gregg School Community Center: The former Spring Mills Elementary School, which closed three years ago, is now the Old Gregg School Community and Recreation Center. Operational since 2007, the facility offers rental and meeting space for groups and classes. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute conducts courses year round at the center, and WIC also holds their monthly meetings there…; Read full story
Talleyrand Park: With a $2000 grant from the Community Foundation, the Talleyrand Park Citizens Committee is currently in the process of making much-needed improvements on the Bellefonte park, including plantings on the creek banks. “We’re having some erosion of the banks,” says True Fisher, committee chairperson. “So we’re looking to use winterberry plants which will give us a nice color over the winter. We’re going to plant some of those going along the creek around the bridge foundation, trying to retain the soil a little better. And we’re looking into planting native iris for in the peninsula and a number of other native plants that we would like to be using to hold the banks back to keep them from eroding.”…; Read full story
Workforce Affordable Housing: Centre County Association of Realtors
Jerry Wettstone; As the past president of the Centre County Association of Realtors, Jerry Wettstone is primarily responsible for spearheading the Affordable Housing Fund. “We’ve renamed it The American Dream Housing Fund,” he says. “There’s a general expression, particularly in the real estate community, that all Americans have the dream of owning their own home, so we thought that maybe that [name] would be appropriate. But what we’re going to do here is to help first-time home buyers realize the dream of home ownership.”…; Read full story
Workforce Affordable Housing: Centre County Housing and Land Trust
George Khoury; “We’re a relatively new organization, only a year and a half in existence,” says George Khoury of the Centre County Housing and Land Trust. “A land trust focuses on housing affordability by acquiring a piece of land, then constructing a home on that land. We turn around and sell that home to a new home buyer, but we retain ownership of the land. By doing that we take the price of the land out of the cost of the home. Here in this region that’s probably as much as 30 or 35 percent. So by retaining ownership of the land, that brings the price of the house down and makes it affordable for more people. In the simplest terms that’s how a land trust operates.”…; Read full story
Workforce Affordable Housing: State College Community Land Trust
Housing Transitions
Ron Quinn; Housing Transitions will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year, and for 21 of those years, Ron Quinn has been the executive director. “During that time,” he explains, “the variety of organizations that we’ve partnered with, including the Community Foundation, have assisted us with a number of projects and initiatives that we’ve undertaken. Without [that] assistance, our job would be very difficult, if not impossible. We began in our early years with just an emergency shelter that was operated out of an apartment on University Drive, and since then we have evolved to providing a comprehensive approach to housing needs for Centre County residents”…; Read full story