Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today Gateway to Giving GMCF Scholarship Stories (Pat McDaniel Scholarship) - Episode 179
Today we chatted with Morree Floersch Chairperson of the Clay Center Community Improvement Foundation and Bill Oetinger President of the Clay County Education Endowment Association (CCEEA). Listen as Bill retells the remarkable journey of the CCEEA, whose humble beginnings over two decades ago have transformed into a powerhouse for local scholarships, bolstered by the incredible $2.6 million McDaniel family donation. But the story doesn't end there. Mitzi discusses with Morree and Bill the ambitious $8 million fundraising campaign for a new community center in Clay Center, fueled by technology, grants, and a vision for the future. We celebrate the vibrant culture of philanthropy fostered by passionate individuals from all walks of life, contributing to the Clay Center Kansas growth. This episode is a testament to the power of collaboration, pride, and the enduring legacy of donors committed to nurturing future generations.
Welcome to Philanthropy Today. We are excited to share information on ways you can support the charitable causes of your choice. My name is Mitzi Richards and I look forward to being with you today on our GMCF Philanthropy Today podcast series. Today our topic is the impact of scholarship in our series Gateway to Giving GMCF Scholarship Stories. Well, welcome you guys. Thanks so much, driving over from Clay Center to be here with us today. Before we get started talking about the scholarships and how important they are to your community and certainly to Greater Northeast Kansas, I want to stop and ask a couple of questions about a very special day you just had in Clay Center. So, maureen, tell me about your Gathering for Good and the impact it had in your community yesterday.
Speaker 2:Was it day before yesterday? So our Gather for Good match day is every year in September. We do it on the third Thursday and every year it's always a really great event and we always are impressed at how our community shows up and we raise more money and set records every year. But this year this was our seventh year and this year we went from $275,000 to $430,000, so our community just blew it out of the water. Yeah, just really. I mean we're really pretty speechless about it.
Speaker 1:So we're super proud of our community. Well, congratulations. I had to do that little plug there for you guys because it it says a lot. It says a lot about the people and it says a lot about the work of your foundation and what you're accomplishing. So now I'll turn the page and we'll talk about philanthropy. Today. It's a podcast you're on. This series is really to shine a light on the transformation scholarships provide In a community. Lots of times, education is really what we focus on and how to help people who may not be able to obtain their education through scholarships. So thank you both for being here. Bill Odinger, you are the president of the Clay County Education Endowment Association and that organization. Tell me a little bit about it. It has a rich history.
Speaker 3:Well, back a little over 20 years ago, the two members of our school board and the attorney that was representing the school board set up the 501c3 because people were wanting to give scholarships and had given a few directly to the district. Well, the district really didn't want to administer them. Some of them wanted to pick their own recipients. Sometimes they wanted school to pick the recipients and they just thought why don't we just set up this 501c3 for the USD 379, which is Clay Center and Wakefield Inn? So that got set up. I was not on the original founder, but came in just shortly thereafter and we started out with I think like $20,000 or something. Pretty soon we were up around 200 and it felt like, okay, we're starting to make an impact. Some of them were endowments, some of them were direct. We tried to make it so that you could give every year and still have a scholarship in your name, or you could give us some that we just used the interest income or whatever off of. Anyway, as my habit, longevity is everything. And so we're now in business, we're going along, and I always remember this story there was a brother and a sister. Neither one of them ever left home. Neither one of them got married. They lived together to an old age and passed away on a farm out east of Clay Center and lived very poorly, very average whatever. And when they passed they had a million, two in Series E bonds, half of which went to child care and half of which went to the Educational Endowment Association. It's like nobody even knew who these people were and all of a sudden now we're on the map. You know we've got $600,000 to work with, but they had very strict rules on interest Income could only be used and you know we went through the 1% years for a long time. But anyway, since then there's been several and, it's interesting, a lot of times it's a retired teacher that'll give. We had one that was $750,000. We had one that was $400,000. So we're kind of plugging along.
Speaker 3:And then about three years ago the McDaniel family came along, who, ross Pat McDaniel, graduated in 1947, I think had died in 2005. But he was a troubled young man and the city of Clay Center, several folks helped him out and he'd never forgotten it. And he had gone out to Orange County, los Angeles, to be a teacher and started investing in storage units and picked up some acreage right in the middle of what's now Los Angeles. And so I mean basically made a lot of money, became a school superintendent but always had a little soft spot for Clay Center. So we get a call one afternoon and his widow says my sons each have some money in their trust. One of them wants to see if your endowment association would be interested in it. And so her accountant called and said it's not a lot of money, it's only what? Was it 1.4?
Speaker 3:I think 1.4 million. It's not a lot of money. Because she was calling from Las Vegas and she said that'll do a few scholarships for a few years. I said, lady in Clay County, kansas, that'll do a lot of scholarships for a lot of years. Well, we'd like to see it gone in 10 years. And I'm thinking, wow, his brother hears about it and says I've got the other half of that, sounds good. So now we're at 2.6. And simple rule vocational only. Anybody that wants it gets it. It's not full ride, it's full tuition, books et cetera. They got to. He was a big believer. They got to have some skin in the game. They got to figure out how to eat, they got to figure out where to live and, you know, we just have kind of gone from there. And now all of a sudden we're the full meal deal.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's exciting. Yeah, that's been huge. Interesting that they said that's not a lot of money. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Things are different in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1:Or Orange County.
Speaker 3:Orange County. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh wow, what a story. So that was really kind of out of the blue. It wasn't something you were expecting?
Speaker 3:No, no clue. But my point is just like the gather for good, you have to start somewhere. You have to be in business, just like I was in the construction business. The first years are slow, then it builds up, and builds up and you know. Then you get a reputation, good or bad, and people hear about it and people want to give. I mean, the gather for good thing is huge, just like she just was telling you about.
Speaker 1:You know it's proof. I mean, people want to be a part of something big.
Speaker 3:Be helpful, yes, and so we've just grown and grown and I don't know how do you want me to get into the connection to the foundation?
Speaker 1:please do, because with all those C's Clay Center. Clay County yeah, talk about how your endowment association started partnering with the Clay Center Community Improvement Foundation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's. A distinction is we are countywide. Therefore, because our unified school district 379 is countywide, gotcha, it's bordered just strictly in Clay County. So we're called the Clay County Educational Endowment Association, but their organization is the Clay Center Community Improvement Foundation, more focused on the city of Clay Center. But they're a county, they support the whole county.
Speaker 1:They support the whole county too, sure yeah, but they're a county. We support the whole county they support the whole county too Sure yeah.
Speaker 3:Anyway. Well, they came into existence a lot of years ago and I'll let her go into that, but they were a fledgling nickel and dimer as well, until all of a sudden some things started happening and we wanted away from the handling of the money, the things that basically a foundation does, and had you were you already with manhattan?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, and so a few years ago, a few years back back, the Community Improvement Foundation partnered with Manhattan and the home run for us is ED Nichols. The scholarship piece now is handled through, we make the call.
Speaker 3:And then all the administration, all the administration, the follow up, the checks to the school, the thank you cards from the kids, all of the things that we as volunteers were becoming overwhelmed. And then last year, for instance, the McDaniel Scholarship had 18 kids going to probably 10 different institutions, and so it would be overwhelming, you know, for us Also. They didn't have the foundation, had no reason to take that role on, but because they're partnered with Manhattan, then we pick up this piece of the scholarship committee.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a really big distinction, because your word volunteer is what sometimes people don't realize. Oh yeah, your work Bill, you were doing it as a volunteer. We all are, yeah, and marie to you as well. So, um, having having the opportunity to partner and this is sounds like a plug, but with gmcf and the work edie does, you're right, she is the angel and she can focus on.
Speaker 3:Just, we still pick them and that was one of the little differences between the school not wanting to do this and us starting. The foundation is that our rules are you can pick the criteria. You can say I want this to go to a redheaded girl that plays basketball left-handed. You can do that, but you can't pick the girl that plays basketball left-handed. You can do that, but you can't pick the girl. Now you say, well, they'll set that up so my grandkid can get that. Well, if we smell that rat, it isn't going to happen. So we make the call as to who gets the scholarship and some folks don't like that and I think there are some that have given directly to the school and then they say this scholarship goes here.
Speaker 3:If they do it to their own family, it's theoretically not tax deductible exactly but you know we don't get into that because we don't allow it yeah, you separate that like, for instance, my mom and dad have a scholarship.
Speaker 3:My mom didn't go to college, neither did dad, but but mom was always big into music and English and she always made us dot our I's and cross our T's, and so her scholarship goes to someone doing either English or music in a four-year institution. Dad's, who worked with his hands his whole life, his went to Votek Earlier. Now that McDaniel came along, we took him out and put him in the four-year, because Daniel takes all comers.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible. So anyone who applies for the McDaniel.
Speaker 3:They're in.
Speaker 1:As long as they live in Clay County.
Speaker 3:Go to USD 379. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And go to a vocational school. Do the vocational schools have to be in Kansas or can they be other places?
Speaker 3:Well, we started out thinking that, but there's a school up at Beatrice, nebraska that's got a great ag department and there's a school in Cody Wyoming that's got a great auto body department, and so we've kind of slipped over the border, sure, but we're focusing most of it because we're not four year. Uh, we're heavy into even one year. A lot of these what do you call beauty schools, like cosmetology. A lot of those are one year, sure, but they're a lot of money, they're more. They're more dollars for one year than most of the kids for two, but they're out.
Speaker 3:In fact, I think Maury's got some numbers for you about because this is our third year about how many kids are actually out there working. And that was his goal. Their son told me that dad's goal would be a kid goes out, spends two years in a vo-tech, gets his plumbing certificate, gets a job, works for five or six years, goes back to college to be an engineer, works his way through school with his plumbing. Not only has he got a free edge or a paid education, he's a hell of an engineer, I mean because he's got the practice, because he's got the practical side, because he's got the practice Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:So Cool Maury, tell us some of those numbers. What are some? Of the results of this wonderful gift.
Speaker 2:So I contacted the counselor at our school district and I just asked her to tell me some of the certificates that kids have graduated with. Kids have graduated with and she said there's cosmetology, diversified ag, nursing power, technical linemen, construction, vet nursing and electrician, and that many of these students are now back in our community either working with local businesses or on their family farms and helping to secure another generation of thriving community.
Speaker 1:That's powerful when you think of the fact that they are getting their education, acquiring a trade, a skill, and coming back to the community to pay it forward, hopefully.
Speaker 3:We didn't make that a criteria. You know to come back. But we have gone around to some local businesses and say, hey, these kids are going to get tuition and fees, how about you pick up, help them with room and board? And but you'd say, hey, I want two years or whatever. When they then, they'll come back to the community, they'll get started. And you know, we've only I say we've only been at this three years now, so we don't have much of that going on, but but that's going to happen.
Speaker 1:It'll be fun to track.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it'll be fun to watch how it happens Because the kids and see the high school has a I call it go away. I don't know what they call it now, but where they even while they're in high school, they're working part-time in businesses around town Internships, I believe, internships and so some of those kids are did that, did the Vo-Tech came back to that same place.
Speaker 1:Well, it's so cool to see the kids plugged into those internships, you know, while they're getting their schooling, because oftentimes I think when, because it's powerful, those connections are made while they're in school. Because I think some kids think they go to school and I think it's powerful those connections are made while they're in school, because I think some kids think they go to school and they think there's nothing back home for me, and here you're demonstrating yeah, there is, and they're doing it and getting that experience, whether they take it someplace else or not, I think it's pretty powerful.
Speaker 3:This is kind of off the subject, but one of the things that clay center had that everybody has now. We had fiber optic way back and so people we've got a lot of folks that have moved there, even from california, whatever they work at home, and because we got high speed internet, now pretty much everybody has that now, but we've had it for years and so how long?
Speaker 1:How long have you had it, Bill? I didn't realize that 10 years?
Speaker 3:Oh easy, 10, maybe 12 years, yeah, and how come? Well, Twin Valley Telephone local company Gotcha Got a. I wouldn't say it's a grant, it's a loan from RUS. And they picked up all these exchanges around here Riley, longford, green, morganville, I don't know how many, eight or ten of them. And it was a $75 million project at the time and they plowed in fiber optic, which everybody's doing now. In fact, the federal government is talking about funding it to some farmer that lives 10 miles off the beaten path.
Speaker 2:But your house. As an example, did you have fiber optic to?
Speaker 3:your house the day you moved in, that was 2004.
Speaker 2:2004.
Speaker 1:I had fiber optic in my house 2003, actually, Goodness.
Speaker 3:When we built where we're living now.
Speaker 1:And it had been around for a year or two.
Speaker 3:And I'm out in the middle of a section and they plowed fiber optic cable. I can get 1,000 bit. That's amazing. In fact we've got a son-in-law that lives in the old farmhouse and he works for a company in Georgia on projects in Arizona and Pennsylvania right now. He never leaves the basement. So I'm just saying that's a big deal for Clay Center basement. So I'm just saying that's a, that's a big deal for clay center. So that fits. You say how does that fit into a vocational? It fits in. Huge because you got more people in town, you got things going on.
Speaker 1:You need plumbers, you need electricians, you need linemen well, and you, when people are looking for a quality of life in a community where they want to raise a family in a safe environment. And you've got all those. You've got the Internet connection, you've got all that cyber.
Speaker 3:Yeah Now everybody's getting it, but still you're out of the game. We're ahead of the game, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and the other thing, too, that I know you have always said is that it's really good for a person to graduate and go to school and go live somewhere else for a while and try living on the other side of the fence for a while and then decide to move back home. It's good for kids to do that.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, because then you know what you didn't know before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then choose to come back to Clay Center if they can, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Your own personal choice is important.
Speaker 2:Instead of it being forced on them.
Speaker 3:Well, we're looking at two examples of that right here.
Speaker 1:So where'd you go, Bill, after?
Speaker 2:you? Did she really just ask that question? Yeah, you shouldn't ask that question you?
Speaker 3:Oh, she really just asked that question, I'm not going to take it back. Getting really close to graduating, you know, I'm a rocket scientist, so it took me five years, took my wife three. She's two years younger, so we both graduate same time. Go to the placement office to start filling out resumes and she says you know, this guy in the next room's got a break coming up because somebody canceled. Jump in there and take an interview just for the practice of interviewing. He's a funny guy. And I says, okay, where is he from? She says New South Wales, and I thought that's England. So we go in there. Thirty minutes later we signed up, but it wasn't England, it was Australia.
Speaker 3:And so we went to australia for two years right out of college, and when we came back we were in that what do we do now, kind of thing. But we had our two years and obviously an experience. So we floated around for another three or four or five and then it was okay, it's time to go home and start the business, which I had never done any construction work either. But we had a tornado right before we came back and so that was what there was to do, and Grace had a teaching job, and so I started out doing something I didn't know how to do, and that's why my heart's in Votek. That's probably not the right word. Technical school.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Anyway, because I know, you know, worked with my hands for a lot of years. Some people work 40 years doing that, you know, and it's honorable, Absolutely and honestly. You know getting way off the subject here, but I got this cartoon on my desk. That's a guy in a three-piece suit standing in his basement in three foot of water and he's saying to the plumber you're going to charge me $250. Just come look. Well, he's a lawyer, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I am, yeah, yeah, I am, and on top of that, I'm going to charge you a hundred dollars, or two hundred dollars an hour while I'm there, while I get there, yeah I mean, it's really there's.
Speaker 1:These trades are big deal they are, and you know, when I was eight years, at the time I was at k-state bill, I worked for the college of engineering and what I heard over and over from industry partners was we are lacking the skilled trades. We need four-year engineers, for sure, or five years in most cases, but we also need those trades. So it's wonderful to see your community and those who really honored their growing up years in your community investing in that future. It's going to be bright.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, it's going well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll be fun to track. Well, what else is going on in Clay County, Clay Center that you guys need to tell our listeners about? Anything on the cutting edge?
Speaker 2:Are you just taking a big exhale after your big match day we're attempting to do fundraising for a community center. We received a grant for four million dollars. Three point eight, I think three point eight million dollars to build a community center, and we dream of it being bigger and better, and so we're trying to raise eight million dollars in total.
Speaker 1:Okay, so a $12 million, well, no, eight altogether, eight total, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we're trying to raise. Actually, it's up to five now we need another three to get everything we want. Yeah, she got a grant. We have an awesome grant writer I call her on steroids that works in our what would be EDG office.
Speaker 2:Grokley County. Groklai County. Groklai County office.
Speaker 3:And she managed to get this grant through, I don't know, community Acts of Kansas or something, but anyway, who's your grant writer? I think Natalie Marotto, natalie Marotto.
Speaker 2:I've met her, okay, so yeah, yeah, probably Manhattan got this same grant too.
Speaker 1:Yes, for the child care capacity building right cbi, where child care business initiative is our, our latest, greatest.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm sorry I don't know exactly the name of the place. This facility has child care and pawnee.
Speaker 3:Mental health is going to be in it. The senior citizens are going to be in it. It's got a multi-purpose room.
Speaker 1:Well, we saw we've been wanting extra gym space for years, purpose room.
Speaker 3:Well, we've been wanting extra gym space for years. We saw that and said we need to put in two gyms right away. So that says okay, we need to raise a lot of money. So $8 million puts us in two gyms with equipment and floors and bleachers and a whole lot of yards.
Speaker 2:Walking track.
Speaker 3:Yeah, walking track, but we can back off of a lot of that with the money that we have.
Speaker 2:but we prefer to go big or go big yeah and the city of clay center has stepped up to own it and run it, and we're so proud of them for taking that on and not being scared.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, they're gonna move the we're gonna move the uh parks and rec guy from a shed to an office in this building and so he'll have, and he's very active with new programs and and things like that. So you know it's, it's going to go well.
Speaker 1:Well, I am certain you will meet your goal and you will all be more fit and all yeah.
Speaker 3:We'll all be going to the senior center, so you got to have a little donuts. Well, that too.
Speaker 1:You've got to have a little donuts in your life.
Speaker 3:You've got to have social.
Speaker 1:Oh, wonderful. Well, I'm trying to think, if there's, before we wrap up. If there's anything else I should ask you Besides Bill, how proud are you that Maury is your daughter?
Speaker 3:Oh, it's yeah, I mean, she puts in a lot of hours for this and, uh, it's a labor of love. We've talked about the history of the educational endowment. This thing started out with zero, 20 bucks. I mean, yeah, and well, so do we for that matter. But they didn't have it. They didn't have a reason for people to give them money like we did. You know, nobody could see. Okay, we really need this foundation to facilitate all this stuff. They're a funnel, for somebody comes up with an idea that's basically tax deductible. I want to put an Avery in the zoo which happened. A family, 80,000 bucks, and one family stepped up and said we want to put an Avery in the zoo. Well, the people that run the zoo, they're 501 too, but they say just go to Maury and run it through for the tax deductibility which, in essence, you know, ends up up here too, and you could come up with, and we've got a lot of that there's we have 47 47 non-profits that ran through this last match day and we started out with what?
Speaker 2:15, 20 I think our first match day had 20 yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So a place for ideas to grow right and be yeah.
Speaker 2:The volunteers to put their passions to work, and we just take care of the back room for them. So Clay Center with Manhattan's help.
Speaker 1:Well, we're very proud that we work together and collaborate, and I think it's. I think it's what makes Kansas a really special place to to live and work and hopefully make for a brighter future.
Speaker 3:We've got a Kansas story.
Speaker 3:I don't know how long we're going to drag it on here, but we have a beautiful little park in Clay Center that we were part of years ago and a couple of young guys in Rotary said we need this. And people just laughed at them and we hired consultants and tried to raise money and tried to get volunteers and it all came together and it just, you know, created this park. Well, you know, personally I was there as one of the better four days of my life because I'm down there with all my construction equipment working on a park you know which was but people just start stepping up. You know, schwab and Eaton came up and laid it out and we even had a construction company out of Junction City drove by while we're out there and said what's going on. They came out and they stayed for two days. It's just 800 people showed up in those four days.
Speaker 1:Wow, to build that park.
Speaker 3:And it just gets you started on what can occur. But anyway, my story is, the two consultants came out of new york ethic in new york is where this company's based out of and got to talking to them and I said you know, and they, neither one of them, work for the company anymore. They haven't worked for the company for 10 or 15 years. I says what are you doing here? He says we watch the board. And so what's the? The job board? They list all the projects they got upcoming. If there's one in Kansas, we take it. I said why? He says because I'm sitting on the front porch drinking beer with you and I'm staying here tonight and I'm going to go home rich. And they were the neatest guys and we had 70-year-old ladies on jigsaws cutting out little leaves to hang on the treehouse. I mean they made everybody feel part of the project and I got to feel like man. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have had this, which wasn't true at all, but you can still feel that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, people feel a part of something bigger. Exactly.
Speaker 3:And so I just say that was a kind of a, really kind of a yeah, it was a pretty pivotal moment.
Speaker 3:Pivotal moment. Yeah, where, like well, for me it was. When they said that If it's in Kansas, we're coming. I said why? It's a break, we get paid, it's fun. I'm living for nothing Drinking your beer, life's good. One of them was self-employed, had a few guys he said I just got tired of traveling. They went to the whole world to do these playgrounds. Sure, the other guy was living on a sailboat. He was the artsy guy and he was in a big tent and he's the one that took all the people that really didn't know any skills or anything and made them feel part of the deal, so I'm just saying that whole attitude.
Speaker 1:It builds a culture. The culture, that's a good word. It does Very much, and one thing leads to another, to another. I mean, what'd you say? How many nonprofits when you started today?
Speaker 2:I think we went from 20 the first year to 47 this year.
Speaker 1:So you've doubled that Seven years. That's incredible, maury, really incredible. Well, thank you guys. Thanks for driving up. I know you got to get back, but appreciate you being here. Appreciate the opportunity to just take pride in what you're doing and work together on behalf of all of us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, the connection with Manhattan has been good. Thank you, it's been good for us.
Speaker 1:Yep. Thank you for joining us today where we look inside the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. You can always learn more about GMCF at our website, mcfksorg. We invite you to subscribe to Philanthropy Today. Wherever you get your podcasts, I'm Mitzi Richards and have enjoyed hosting our Gateway to Giving GMCF Scholarship Stories series in the Ad Astra Cast Studios here in downtown Manhattan, kansas.