Columbus Foundation awards aid 2 more groups

The Columbus Community Foundation’s annual grant awards presentation was held outdoors this year – at the new Memorial Garden created at Heritage Park by the Compassionate Friends of the Stillwater Valley.
Compassionate Friends, a nonprofit organization established in 2006 that supports grieving families, was one of the two Foundation grant recipients this year. It will use the grant to make additional improvements to the garden, including a sculpture of an angel reaching up toward butterflies and a security light.
“We plan to use the garden for our annual butterfly release,” Compassionate Friends treasurer Joyce Terrel said.
The organization also raises funds by selling paving bricks for the new garden.
“The garden could not have been started had it not been for the generous donation given by the Nate DeBruycker Memorial Fund,” Terrel said. “Grant requests were still in the works.”
The Stillwater Valley Watershed Council, the second grant recipient, is a nonprofit that seeks to protect natural resources through stewardship and education.
The organization grew out of a volunteer effort in 2008 to address weed infestations in the upper reaches of the Stillwater River created by mining and the 2006 Derby Fire.
Since then, the Council has continued to promote weed control, water quality and forest health. The organization will use the grant to support its small-acreage weed-control assistance program.
“We’ve been moving our efforts downstream,” chairman Cindy Green said. “We’ll soon be working with landowners between Absarokee and Columbus.”
In the seven years since the Columbus Community Foundation was established in 2008. It has provided about $25,000 in grants derived from the interest on its permanent endowment fund, Foundation president Melissa Kramer said. All the money for the endowment fund comes from donations, she said.
Beneficiaries have included the Stillwater Youth Center, the Kids Club nonprofit daycare, the Museum of the Beartooths, Friends of the Stillwater County Library, the Upward Sports youth basketball program and Columbus schools, Kramer said.
The Foundation has been operating under the umbrella Montana Community Foundation organization but recently attained 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit status.
“In the past, we could provide grants,” Kramer said. “Now we can sponsor a group that doesn’t have nonprofit status.”