November 21st, 2011 guest speakers were Richard Sullivan (Past Chair) and Donna Floyd (Chair) of the Sussex Area Community Foundation (SACF). The Sussex Area Community Foundation just had a successful fundraiser at the high school called "Kids & Chocolate" on November 3rd. SACF recently received $1,100,000 from the Forbes family, which was the Foundation for the SACF beginning...
They were founded in 2003 and are members of the Community Foundation of Canada who have over 170 communities involved in the membership.
Sussex has a very diverse and capable board coming from all different areas, both geographically and professionally. They give a total of five scholarships to the Sussex Regional High School every year, including the Fran Simpson Scholarship and the Earl J. Cunningham Scholarship, endowed by the families in their names. They have distributed over $250,000 in total to over 35 local charities. SACF was researching involvement in the walking trail in Sussex and mentioned that Rotary would be a good hand in helping them and other organizations in getting it started. Donna informed us that there are many ways to give cash, appreciated stock, the gift of life insurance and charitable gift annuity.
They have four committees in total: grants, fund development, communication and investments. They are looking for more volunteers to be on those committees. They have 12 on the board and several other volunteers on the committees.
For more information, visit their website at www.sacfi.org.