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    Our Optimist Club Foundation    _____________________________________________________________________ Over  40 years ago, the Downtown Optimist Club of Evansville saw the need to establish a foundation for members wishing to make monetary contributions to our club.  The purpose was to allow our club to help youth, and organizations serving youth in our area through financial contributions to them. Many members have included our foundation in their wills and subsequently the financial resources have grown to the size that enables our foundation to award numerous scholarships and grants annually.  The earnings are dispersed each year while the principal amount remains intact.  Our foundation has awarded nearly $500,000 in grants and scholarships since it's inception. We solicite organizations, whose main purpose is to serve youth, to apply through our application for the grants and scholarships.  After review by the foundation committee, the earnings are given to the organziations at our weekly meetings.  In 2023 we gave over $20,000 to numerous organizations. Our largest donation in recent years was to Camp Carson in 2014. We donated money to build one of their new cabins - Aztec. Our foundation's largest annual financial grant is from the Thomas and Evelyn Ingle Scholarship.  Click here to read Thank-You Letters from our recipients.   The foundation committee is comprised of these members: President - Ken Dennis Secretary - Ron Eberhart Treasurer - John Perkins Club President Emily Parker Members: Dan Phillips Jeff Olson Karen Morris Mike Burk