 What is a community foundation? It’s a tax-exempt charity allowing many donors ---individuals and organizations--- to pool their assets for the creation of a core group of funding. Like the growth rings of a tree, as more and more community members contribute to the core, the greater the growth is of this financial nucleus. In the case of the Marion Community Foundation, our “tree” was planted on June 2, 1998, with the proceeds from the sale of assets of MedCenter Hospital.
MedCenter Hospital Foundation Board members reviewed numerous options for the use of their proceeds from the sale of the hospital before finally determining that rather than create a private foundation solely for heath care, these funds should be used to better serve the greater Marion area by using the money as the core of a public community foundation.
As a result of this decision, Ohio MedCenter Foundation, Inc. (d.b.a. MedCenter Hospital) changed its name to the Marion Community Foundation and used the proceeds of the sale to establish the Health Care Fund. Those proceeds were the first of an ever-growing number of funds, each with its own identity and purpose, serving needs large and small in the Marion area.
In fact, since its inception in 1998, the Marion Community Foundation has bestowed more $1,000,000 in grants and scholarships from the Health Care Fund and from the other funds that have followed.
Today, Marion Community Foundation funds have helped local students pursue their educational dreams; have funded a successful community-wide weight loss program, (“Find Your Weigh to a Health Heart,”) which left the Marion community a ton lighter, and are helping build a new, state-of-the-art YMCA building.
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