BARBERTON: At last month’s annual meeting of the Barberton Community Foundation, Executive Director Jim Stonkus asked 300 attendees to slip on the sunglasses that had been placed at each seat.
The BCF was celebrating its 20th anniversary by outlining its vision for the next 20 years.
You guessed it: The future’s so bright, they gotta wear shades.
But to understand the transformation the foundation is planning, one need only look at the substantial impact it has already made.
It’s a story that began in 1996. when the Magic City, a small working-class town struggling to find its way in a post-industrial era, suddenly became the envy of every community in the state.
The city owned its very own hospital, and residents had agreed to sell it, swayed by arguments that the future of the health care industry did not bode well for independent facilities.
Just seven years earlier, the Barberton Citizens Hospital board wanted to let Akron General take over its operation for $2.5 million, an idea rejected by voters.
Then in 1996, as the city contemplated an outright sale, people began salivating over the belief that the hospital could net $45 million.
When the high bid came in from a Tennessee group called Quorum Health Care, jaws collectively dropped open.
A check for $75 million arrived right around this time 20 years ago, with another $10 million soon to follow.
The city formed a foundation, put the cash into an endowment, and immediately built a brand new high school.
Because the mortgage is paid with interest earned, that original endowment is a gift that keeps on giving.
The BCF has distributed $87 million in grants and $3.5 million in scholarships — all for the exclusive benefit of this town’s 27,000 residents — while preserving assets of $78 million.
As Ohio Rep. Greta Johnson said at last month’s banquet: “Every good thing I find in Barberton, you really don’t have to peel back many layers to find the foundation at the heart of it.”
As the only current foundation board member who was there at the start, Tom Harnden has a unique perspective of the organization’s evolution.
“We had no long-term plans,” Harnden said, other than to pay for the high school and hand out other grants as the market allowed.
Today, the foundation’s efforts are highly strategic.
In addition to supporting short-term needs of groups like food pantries and health agencies, it has created partnerships with other private and public donors to enable big projects, like renovating the historic Magical Theatre Co. and building a bridge to allow towpath users to access downtown.
BCF also launches its own initiatives, like paying for downtown Barberton to string a canopy of lights over the arts and entertainment district and launching a leadership training program with the help of Leadership Akron.
It also paid to bring a College Now office to town. The BCF spends about $460,000 a year on college scholarships, and an agency that works with people to explore educational opportunities was a way to protect the investment the foundation makes in 60 students each and every year.
Meanwhile, the hospital that got it all started with its sale in 1996 has returned to its nonprofit roots; Barberton Hospital is now owned by Akron-based Summa Health.
The foundation’s fingerprints are all over town. The Lake Anna YMCA, the Foundation Fields on the west side, the high school’s baseball and softball facility, the land on which the new middle school sits — all courtesy of the foundation.
But there are also a host of small grants that impact individual lives in ways that are less visible, many of them funneled through the school district in what Superintendent Patti Cleary calls “icing on the cake.”
All third-graders get swimming lessons. All kindergarteners get a purple T-shirt with their class year on it. All juniors get the opportunity to take field trips to college campuses around the state. Students taking college entrance exams or applying for advanced placement courses get their fees paid.
The foundation has funded Chromebooks for every classroom in the district, as well as classroom paperback libraries to help teachers with literacy programs.
And when the school launched a Barberton Early Childhood Coalition for parents and teachers to discuss their needs, the foundation forked over $500 to pay for an introductory luncheon.
“I just don’t know if there’s another foundation that would be willing to pay for some of these things,” Cleary said. “It’s such a special resource for us.”
Dozens of other groups in town have been taken under BCF’s benevolent wing.
Barberton Area Community Ministries (BACM) is a food pantry that opens twice weekly to serve about 4,700 people a year. Money from the foundation allows them to hand out vouchers for families to pick up fresh produce when the Anna Dean Farmers Market is in season, and helps them send weekend meals home with preschoolers in the Barberton Head Start program.
“We are really lucky to have an organization so dedicated to this community,” BACM Director Margaret Palisin said, adding that the foundation also provides intangible help, like advice on how to recruit new board members.
“A lot of what they can do for us is be generous with their professional expertise,” she said.
Recently, BACM permanently tied itself to the Barberton Community Foundation by starting a fund within the endowment. The foundation will invest the money so that the ministry has a source of interest income.
There are 76 such funds under the Barberton Community Foundation’s umbrella, each with a special purpose.
Two sisters started a fund to help poor residents pay for spaying and neutering their pets. Another donation is explicitly for maintaining the fountain in the middle of Lake Anna. One couple asked for their investment to be used for improving the comfort of young people with disabilities. Yet another fund was started in the hopes of building a community skate park.
“It’s all part of our endowment, but it’s their money and they get to decide what they want it to be used for,” Stonkus explained.
All the small funds are contributing to a vibrant effort to transform Barberton, but here’s perhaps the most significant reason the future is looking bright: The high school mortgage gets paid off in five years.
The high school has been consuming about $2.3 million of the $2.7 million in grants handed out each year.
Board members are looking forward to keeping some of that money in the endowment to help it grow. The money pool has been close to $100 million in bull-market years, and the foundation wants to see the existing $78 million grow again.
But there will certainly be a big source of cash available for new endeavors.
Already, the foundation is fine-tuning its mission in anticipation.
There will be a greater focus on economic development, perhaps opening a business incubator or giving more seed money to the Barberton Community Development Center to help lure new businesses to town.
Committees have been formed to discuss more ways of using Lake Anna Park and how to nurture the city’s growing arts and entertainment district downtown.
There’s an increased focus on getting more families with toddlers involved in pre-kindergarten programs, and a desire to broaden health and fitness programs for all ages, including making the city more bikeable.
Stonkus, a homegrown son, said the foundation has “absolutely” changed his town for the better.
“It’s a strong community, but the foundation has been able to set it on a course for success,” he said. “We’ve accomplished so much, but there are so many ideas right now, I think we’re going to look back 10 years from now and say, ‘Wow, look what happened in Barberton.’... We’re on our way to the next level.”
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.