COMPANY FOUNDATIONS DO GOOD DEEDS ACROSS THE REGION

Last year, the Bank of America Foundation gave away $100 million. The same year, the Target Stores Foundation distributed $1 million a week to charities and nonprofits. Wal-Mart Foundation figures are unavailable for 1999, but in 1998 it spread more than $128 million in donations throughout the U.S.

These are among the foundations established by large corporations to put money back into their communities.

One national company based locally, Health Services Corporation of America, established the Health Careers Foundation in 1990 to provide grants and loans to people -- primarily single parents -- who want to learn to do jobs in the allied health care fields: nursing, respiratory therapy, lab technicians, physician's assistants, dietitians and pharmacists. So far, the foundation has raised more than $1 million each year and has helped almost 3,000 people get an education.

The student usually is an employee of a hospital. The hospital mentors the student through the educational process.

A year after becoming a single mother at age 17, Cape Girardeau native Meike Newell began attending pharmacy school in St. Louis with assistance from the foundation. During the summers she was a pharmacy technician at Southeast Missouri Hospital. Now a pharmacist in St. Louis, Newell next is planning to attend medical school.

HSCA underwrote the foundation in the beginning and now works with vendors and other foundations to raise even more money to help the students. Initially, one-third of the money provided was in the form of a grant, the remainder as a loan. Now half the money is a grant and the other half a loan with no interest due until six months after graduation.

Earl Norman, Husk's CEO, says 95 percent of the loans are being repaid.

Last year, Bank of America made $60,000 in contributions to charities in the region. The United Way, the Missouri Veterans Home, Greater Dimensions Ministries, the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts, the University of Missouri Extension Center, the University Foundation, the Association for Retarded Citizens, the Community Counseling Center, the Cape Girardeau Park Foundation, the YELL Foundation, the Cape Girardeau Police Department, the Cape Girardeau Senior Center, the Network Against Sexual Violence, CASA, both hospital foundations and Chateau Girardeau all were recipients of BofA largesse.

Steve Taylor, the bank's Cape Girardeau president, said the money is given to nonprofits that "enhance the quality of life in the community."

The amount of funds Bank of America distributes is based on each bank's retail market share.

The Wal-Mart Foundation focuses its giving on the Children's Miracle Network, the United Way and a community matching grant program. The company also gives out a Teacher of the Year Award and participates in Make a Difference Day each October, distributing $1,000 to a local organization. During the holidays, each store selects a charity which receives a portion of that day's sales.

Another program called Volunteerism Always Pays provides money to an organization in the name of a Wal-Mart employee who has given the organization volunteer time.

The Target Foundation is nationally affiliated with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., where it has established the Target House to provide housing for the families of children who are being treated there. The foundation also is a supporter of Habitat for Humanity and the United Way. The Cape Girardeau store raised $7,000 for the United Way last year.

Two of the store's executives also sit on community boards currently the Missouri Mentoring Foundation and the Community Counseling Center. Human resource manager Julie Baumann says the store also has a service project each month. In February, the store threw a party for children at the Easter Seals Early Childhood Center.

A spokesman said Kmart does not have a foundation as such but each year sponsors the Muscular Dystrophy Walk-a-thon.