Total Grant of $50,000 Includes $25,000 Challenge Matching Grant
The Northern New York Community Foundation has made a commitment to assist three organizations support a permanent internship program, while also honoring the legacy of a longtime supporter of environmental stewardship, conservation and education in the Thousand Islands region.
The Community Foundation’s Board of Directors approved a $50,000 grant to help build and establish the Kenneth Deedy Environmental Internship Fund in partnership with the Thousand Islands Land Trust (TILT). Of the $50,000 grant, $25,000 will be made directly to build the fund, and $25,000 is being provided as a challenge matching grant. The Community Foundation will match all new gifts to build the fund, up to $25,000.
Mr. Deedy, instrumental in founding TILT, passed away in August at age 81. The summer internship will recruit high school seniors or first-year college students for an opportunity to assist three area organizations with environmental programs, projects and initiatives. Interns will be serve at TILT, Save The River, and Minna Anthony Common Nature Center over a nine-week period. The first interns will be selected in the summer of 2019. The fund will be held by the Community Foundation, with the internship program administered by TILT. Before his passing, Mr. Deedy made an initial gift to establish the fund.
“To be able to partner with TILT and two other organizations that do so much to benefit our region makes the investment in this initiative especially meaningful. We also strive to honor the legacy of someone whose life embodied what this fund will serve to forever perpetuate. This new fund will create a collaboration of resources that will encourage, across the generations, an ongoing belief in the importance of partnerships that make the region stronger,” said Rande Richardson, Community Foundation director.
The Community Foundation has established partnerships with all three organizations. The Foundation currently stewards TILT’s Land Conservation and Environmental Education Fund and Zenda Farm Conservation Fund. Save The River and Minna Anthony Common Nature Center also have endowment fund partnerships with the Community Foundation.
“The St. Lawrence River communities have been blessed to have such a strong Community Foundation working alongside them for the betterment of the entire Thousand Islands region,” said Jake Tibbles, Thousand Islands Land Trust executive director. “As one of our longest-standing partners, the Northern New York Community Foundation has been a champion of TILT’s land conservation and environmental efforts. The Foundation’s support of the Kenneth Deedy Environmental Internship Fund is yet another example of its unparalleled leadership and its dedication to being a catalyst for positive change,” he said.