SoutheastHEALTH Foundation receives grant from CFO and Commerce Trust

Jill Reynolds, vice president at Commerce Trust Co. and chair of the Coover Regional and Place-Based Education grant selection committees; Patricia Ranzini, executive director at SoutheastHEALTH Foundation; and Brian Fogle, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks.

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks, in partnership with Commerce Trust Company, awarded a $10,000 grant to SoutheastHEALTH Foundation for the Reach Out and Read Project. The grant was presented as part of the 2019 Coover Regional Grant program on April 18 at Commerce Trust in Springfield.

The program trains and supports physicians in Cape Girardeau to give books to young patients at well-child checkups and advise parents about the importance of reading aloud to their children when brain development is most rapid. Physicians affiliated with Southeast Pediatrics adhere to the mission of Reach Out and Read.

“SoutheastHEALTH is the medical hub between St. Louis and Memphis, so we serve a huge area through the Bootheel,” said Patricia Ranzini, executive director at SoutheastHEALTH Foundation. “This grant will provide about 10,000 books to more than 4,000 families and greatly improves the likelihood that parents will read to their children. The reason it works so well is because the doctors prescribe the activity, which we know boosts language development.”

A total of $320,000 was awarded to three place-based education projects and 16 other organizations serving rural areas across central and southern Missouri as part of the Coover Place-Based Education and Regional Grant programs.

The grants are made possible through the generosity of the late Julia Dorothy Coover, who worked for Commerce Bank for 30 years. She established the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation in 1992 to honor her husband’s memory. Since then, the Coover Charitable Foundation has awarded about $5.7 million in grants to nonprofit agencies and rural schools across the Ozarks.

“We are honored to continue Mrs. Coover’s legacy through these grant programs,” said Commerce Trust Vice President Jill Reynolds. “Thanks to the foresight of her endowment nearly 30 years ago, more than 19 communities across central and southern Missouri will be positively impacted by these grants today.”

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks is a regional public charitable foundation established in 1973 that provides asset and resource development, grantmaking and public leadership through a network of donors, 49 affiliate foundations and some 600 nonprofit partners across central and southern Missouri.

Community Foundation of the Ozarks

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