ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Today, Christmas presents are being opened in homes across the country, and locally, the Western Kansas Community Foundation presented an early holiday gift to one Liberal non-profit last Friday.
As part of its Christmas grants program, WKCF leaders presented a check to Liberal Senior Center Director Tanya Rivera for $1,500.
Foundation Program and Marketing Director Stacie Hahn said Christmas grants are a surprise funding opportunity the WKCF board tries to do every year after reviewing grants given out in November as part of the fall grant cycle.
“We try to make it where we can impact at least one organization in all 15 of our counties with some surprise funding as a way to appreciate what they’re doing in the community and also to let them know we’re available should they need additional funding through grants we can partner with them through,” Hahn said.
As for how Christmas grants are distributed, Hahn said WKCF’s grant committee prior to the November grant cycle thinks about areas in the communities the foundation serves such as health, kids and senior services and education to decide which organizations to benefit.
“They try to pick an area that would cover all the counties, and I compile a list of organizations I can find that fit that criteria in those counties,” she said. “They elect to fund from that list and try to get at least one organization in all 15 counties.”
Hahn said senior centers in those counties were chosen due to budget cuts being made by government entities at the local, state and federal level.
“Counties and other government entities were having to cut some budgets, and lots of senior centers are part of those county entities,” she said. “We had also done what we call community benchmarking in four communities, and what we heard from those communities was they wanted their communities to be resilient and thrive, but if there weren’t services for seniors available, the community would start to dwindle. We recognized senior centers as one of those vital services for a community to be sustainable thrive.”
With senior centers located in each of the 15 counties, Hahn said it only made sense to provide Christmas grants to area centers.
Rivera was naturally surprised by the gift from WKCF, as she had been looking for ways to get extra funding to the local senior center.
“It’s beyond words,” she said. “I’m so elated with it. I’ve been praying for the Lord to guide us and keep us going and to say this is the right thing I did in leaving the Area Agency on Aging and coming here.”
Hahn said being able to deliver presents of this magnitude this close to Christmas is great.
“It’s really fun,” she said. “I enjoy it. We didn’t used to deliver our Christmas grants this way. We just mailed them.”
Hahn said WKCF is about relationship building, and putting a personal touch to hand deliver surprises and connecting with the agencies the foundation serves was important enough to make the change from traditional methods of delivery.
“I get to go around in my Christmas attire with a Santa hat, an elf hat or reindeer hat, and I get to come into these organizations and spread Christmas cheer,” she said. “I feel like one of Santa’s reindeer or one of the elves delivering gifts on his behalf.”
Hahn was donning a reindeer cap as she delivered the grant money to Rivera, and when asked which reindeer she was, she chose Prancer.
As for the November grant cycle, Hahn said WKCF has multiple organizations it funds through that cycle, as well as its community benchmarking grants, “Our Community Our Future,” in four area communities – Liberal, Hugoton, Lakin and Cimarron – and each of those communities were awarded $15,000.
“Those are much larger grant awards, and we also decided on these Christmas grant opportunities,” she said. “We always do that at the end of the year, and we had a lot to review.”
The fall grant cycle saw just more than $200,000 awarded to area non-profits, which Hahn said was great.
“We had lots of requests, but we were able to fund nearly everything we were requested at least partially,” she said. “We made some connections to new organizations that hadn’t been funded before, so it was beneficial for us as well.”
Local grants awarded as part of the fall grant cycle include:
• Meade County Community Foundation – “Foundant Startup Costs” $4,337.33
• Mosaic – “Travel Without Lifting” $2,800
• Satanta Area Arts Council – “Creative Tribe” $2,421
• Stevens County Housing Authority – “Inspection Repairs” $4,022
• Stepping Stone Shelter – “Kitchen Expansion” $4,100
• Western Kansas Child Advocacy Center – “Smart Boards in Interviews” $10,000
The second half of November and early December saw WKCF collecting funds for its annual Match Day campaign, this year on Dec. 2. Globally, the day is known as Giving Tuesday, and Hahn said this year’s campaign was an immense one, with more than $1.1 million collected for participating agencies. She added $150,000 of that is the match pool the community foundation gets through sponsorships.
“We provide as a matching contribution on those dollars that come in,” she said. “The rest of those dollars were donations purely for those 55 agencies. It’s a record breaking year. We’ve not gotten that high before, so it’s exciting for all of us.”
The new year will soon be here, and Hahn said WKCF has some big plans for 2026, the foundation’s 30th anniversary.
“We know we will be hosting a donor dinner,” she said. “We bring in our donors, our founding members, as many as possible and have an event with them, an appreciation event. We will be looking to have a few special things. We will have Match Day again next year.”
Other events being discussed include an open house at WKCF’s office in Garden City in May, which is the date in which the foundation was founded in the 1990s.
“We’ll be planning those and releasing that information, and as per usual, we’ll have our three grant cycles – March 1, July 1, Nov. 1,” she said. “Women of Purpose will be happening with the March 1 grant cycle as well. It’s much of the same, but a few extra things for our anniversary year.”
Hahn said excitement is building as the foundation reaches its 30th anniversary.
“We were one of the first few community foundations in Kansas,” she said. “We have some staff who’ve been on a little longer term who are excited to have seen the changes in the community foundation across time and what we’re able to do for our communities. We’re just excited to see what another 30 years for all of the 15 counties we serve can look like with us providing the support we can.”
At this point in time, WKCF administers and manages about $55 million in assets. Hahn said some of those are non-cash assets, though.
“We have some farm ground we manage through an LLC with some farm managers,” she said. “The rest of that is assets we have invested on behalf of donors that is either donor restricted and they provide the grants funds for two agencies they care about or that come into our unrestricted pool that we use for our competitive grant processes and these grant processes.”
Both Rivera and Hahn are thankful for the spirit of the Christmas season and the joy it brings.
“I am thankful for people who still care because not everybody does,” Rivera said.
“I am thankful I get to do the job I do,” Hahn said. “I enjoy being able to connect with the non-profits and see the services in the community, and we get to do this work. We’re providing and making sure our communities are thriving.”
