Riverboat grant awards give reason to celebrate

RIVERSIDE — Dozens of area nonprofit and local government representatives braved bitter cold and harsh wind last week for a trip to the Riverside Casino, where the Washington County Riverboat Foundation announced the awards for its fall grant cycle.

It was well worth the journey. While recipients all knew they’d leave the building with a check of some kind the night of Dec. 4, the specific dollar amounts weren’t presented until the end of the night, a suspense-building tradition of the nonprofit funded by casino revenue.

“This is the 18th year that our foundation has been able to provide the final missing piece to the journey of so many of your projects,” WCRF Board President Stephanie Sexton said. “Congratulations to all of you who are so driven, and so focused, and so energized.”

Splitting $1.43 million of fall season grants among nine applicants, the payout was smaller than usual, and the list of recipients shorter. WCRF representatives said that was thanks to a sizable list of grants signed in the spring cycle, and an emergency $300,000 grant made several months ago to a historical barn relocation project.

“The Riverboat Foundation gets just under $5 million this year from the casino, and we’re giving out over $6 million,” WCRF Director Patty Koller said. “Some of it is over time, like PAWS & More and (the Hoover Presidential Foundation) because they’re building their projects, that’s how we can go over what we actually have.”

While the sum was a lower figure than in previous seasons, recipients said the money would make a massive difference in their respective causes.

The city of Kalona walked away with $50,000 to buy a new job trailer. The equipment will streamline the continuously successful student-built housing initiative, wherein the local government works with nearby schools and contractors to give students on-the-job construction training building affordable housing every summer, and now, during parts of the school year.

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“As we look to expand on the amount of time that we have, we really needed to have our own job trailer for the students that was outfitted with the appropriate equipment for them to be able to build a house,” said Kalona City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh. “It’s a pull-behind 24-foot trailer with ladders, air compressors, all the things that a general contractor would have.”

WACO Community Schools also fared well, receiving $115,000 for a new greenhouse on school grounds, rounding out fundraising for a $2.2 project that school officials say will vastly improve ag education.

“We had a very generous donor for our ag science center, and for all the things we wanted to get done, the greenhouse was an additional cost that put us over our budget,” said Superintendent Ken Crawford. “With a little bit of brainstorming, we thought we’d throw in a little bit from the school, see if the Riverboat would answer that … This is something the kids are going to use all the time.”

The fall grant cycle saw one grant recipient win biggest. The Hoover Presidential Foundation, which runs a museum dedicated to Iowa’s only president in West Branch, got a $1,000,000 check for major renovations at that building.

Foundation CEO Mundi McCarty said the chunk of change would help update the former president’s museum with worldview-changing information and a sleek new design.

“It’s going to allow us to tell a part of the Hoover story that has a perception that might be negative for people who have learned about the Great Depression, or Hoover’s role in it,” she said. “Much has been uncovered, much has been learned about the Great Depression since the original museum was built. So the changes to peoples’ perceptions about the Great Depression will be vast.”

A number of spring grant cycle recipients attended the event as well, accepting novelty-size checks from WCRF board members, and speaking highly of the foundation’s impact on their various community-improving initiatives.

In one speech, YMCA of Washington County CEO Amy Schulte said funding from WCRF were “more than a donation, it was a lifeline.”

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Spokespeople from PAWS & More Animal Shelter in Washington submitted a video presentation which played at the event. In it, organizers pushing for a new, larger animal shelter said the effort likely wouldn’t be possible without the foundation’s support.

“We are so humbled an honored and just, beyond grateful to have received this amazing gift,” Shelter Director Amber Talbot said in her remarks.

In total, the foundation granted $1,430,053 last week, making for a total of over $6 million given out in 2024, and over $70 million since its founding in 2006. This year’s fall grant cycle recipients were:

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com