December 7, 2016
Reinvest North County celebrates success Learn & Play
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Sweet Holiday Treats
Community Voices
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By Dr. Gloria J. Johnson
Submitted photo Rebecca Zoll, (left) President and CEO of North County Incorporated, worked with the Reinvest North County Fund to help distribute crisis assistance to repair and rebuild to area businesses.
After injecting nearly $1 million into the community, the fund looks to transition into an advisory role
Around Town
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School
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Teen wins Youth of the Year
By Nicholas Elmes After two years and over $950,000 in investments in the community the Reinvest North County Fund is transitioning into a more advisory role in the improvement of northern St. Louis County. The fund, which worked closely with St. Louis Regional Business Council (RBC) and North County Incorporated (NCI), recently completed its tenth round of funding to area businesses and school districts. “Hundreds of donors came forward to support the fund. We wanted to show the residents that St. Louis cares. Now many organizations such as the United Way, the Urban League, Better Family Life, Forward Thru Ferguson and so many others are on the ground addressing the issues that must be addressed,” said Executive Director of the St. Louis Regional Business Council Kathy Osborn. “Now as we close the Reinvest Fund we want to encourage donors to give to these organizations. I can assure you that the RBC will continue to invest our time and money in this community.” The Reinvest North County Fund began as an emergency response to the unrest of August 2014. “We saw a lot of people wanted to re-
spond and help but they were not really sure how to do it, especially with the donor community, they were also not sure where to invest their money and they wanted to make sure they invested their money in an initiative that would be not only effective but quick to the response as well,” said Coordinator for Education Reform and Diversity and Inclusion Programs Ryan Jones. “At first, it was for the school districts paying for buses so kids could get to school or paying for replacing windows that had been broken, then with local businesses it was immediate grants to help them stay afloat. Later we became more strategic to create more long-term systematic change.” Over the past two years, the fund helped four school districts, Riverview Gardens School District, Jennings School District, FergusonFlorissant School District, and the Normandy Schools Collaborative, by providing food pantries, clothing and transportation, to robotics and coding instruction, college preparation, science books and supplies. Fifty-five businesses received crisis assistance to repair and rebuild, as well
as support for owners to attend capacity building workshops in finance, human resources, law, insurance, marketing and public relations. “We had a very entrepreneurial mindset where we did not know what was going to happen,” said Jones. “We definitely did not expect to raise this much money and have such a large impact on the community.” He said the fund worked closely with the school districts and area businesses to figure out how the investment could best create long-term change. “In the schools, one of our biggest projects was providing summer programming,” said Jones. “We partnered with the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club or Greater St. Louis, and a handful of other nonprofits as well as the United Way to create something called the North County Collaborative where we were able to provide summer programming in all four school districts at a reasonable cost. The goal is that not only will they be able to retain the information from the previous school year but they will also be more equipped for the fall school year as well.” See REINVEST page 2
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