By Krystal Smalley
ksmmalley@wbcowqel.com
The Bucyrus Area Community Foundation has been serving most of the county for over 25 years but it wasn’t until Monday that it could say it would be helping the entire county.
BACF Director Janet Pry announced Monday evening, with the help of her board of directors, that the BACF will be renamed the Community Foundation for Crawford County (CF4CC) and will be serving the entire county community.
When the BACF was founded over 25 years ago, its articles of incorporation prevented it from serving Polk Township, which houses the city of Galion, due to Galion’s own community foundation, which mainly operates as a scholarship fund.
“We went through a strategic plan a few years ago and our vision is to make Crawford County a community of choice by 2020,” explained Pry.
Pry and her board members attended a presentation by the head of the Cincinnati Foundation where they discussed ideas like collective impact. “The idea behind collective impact is you get everybody in the same rowboat, rowing together, and look how much distance you’ve covered when that happens,” said Pry.
“It’s our hope that the Community Foundation and 20/20 are these backbones. We need to be effective if we really want to start working together as a county. Not Bucyrus, not Galion, not New Washington, not Crestline – but as Crawford County.”
It was with this belief that Pry and her board thought it was time to start serving all of Crawford County.
“And so we are tonight announcing that our name is being changed,” said Pry as a few of her board members unveiled a sign with the BACF’s new name. “We are legally now the . . .Community Foundation for Crawford County.”
The Timken Foundation offered a $200,000 challenge grant in 1984 if the BACF was able to raise $100,000. The community instead raised $200,000 and gave out its first grants in 1987. It currently has assets of over $12 million.