Foundations
6 * PhilMtlm^yJounial of North CaroM
The family tree
Durham
family
creates
foundation
The Fox Family Fbundation was
established in 1991 by Frances
Hill Fbx to continue a family tra
dition of giving to education,
health care and the arts.
By Barbara Solow
Durham
For the past three years, David
Beischer has been learning a lesson
in family values.
As executive director of a founda
tion created by his grandmother -
Frances Hill Fox - Beischer has
watched his family’s philanthropic
dreams gradually become reality.
The Fox Family Foundation,
A grim picture for children
The Annie E. Casey Foundation has
released a new study that shows a
sharp rise in the numbers of American
children living in poverty - from 3.4 mil
lion in the 1970s to 5.6 million in 1994.
August i996
GRANTMAKING
which has assets of about $1.2 mil
lion, will distribute about $55,000 in
grants this year to nonprofits in
Durham, Orange and Wake counties.
Previous grantees include Durham
Academy and the Foundation for
Better Health, the organizer of recent
centennial celebrations for Watts
Hospital in Durham - which is now
home to the N.C. School of Science
and Math.
The idea for the foundation grew
out of planning for Fox’s estate,
which includes a 1,000-acre former
Look for FOX, page 7
Painting by numbers
Artist Reach teaches inmates self-respect
Laura Roselli has had no trouble
convincing jail administrators
that the arts program benefits
inmates as well as the entire
community.
By Stephanie Greer
Durham
Working with watercolors and
making percussion instruments prob
ably wasn’t what most inmates
thou^t they would be doing with
their time at the Fbrsyth County Jail.
But since 1994, an informd arts
program there has grown into tour
arts classes - three at Fbrsyth and
one at the Durham County Jail -
known as Artist Reach. The program
runs solely on volunteer effort and a
couple of small grants, and is
designed to give inmates who choose
to ted^e the class self-esteem, self-con
trol and communications skills that
will help them be successful after
their release.
“It’s this "wdiole thing where they
ARTS
learn how to work with people,” says
Laura Roselli, director of Artist
Reach. “You’d be surprised how many
people have never had one-on-one
collaboration with other people in
their lives. You can see a progression
of their attitudes. They leam how to
have relationships with other people
... they learn basic communications
skills.”
Roselli says inmates who come
into her program as “little shells of
people” wind up helping others a few
months later. Those shifts in attitude
and self-concept, she says, are the
results of inmates’ projects, where
they work with other class members
hut still have the freedom to use their
own creativity.
Roselli says jail guards tell her
that her students come back to dor
mitories calmer, less stressed, after
the arts classes. She says inmates,
who tell her the self-expression
makes them feel better, are the pro-
An Artist Reach student shows
off his creations.
gram’s staunchest champions.
Roselli didn’t start out to run
Artist Reach; she already had a full
time job as membership and volun
teers coordinator at the Southeastern
Center for Contemporary Art. Her
schooling is in arts education, and
she is a printmaker and sculptor.
When she got to Artist Reach, the
program didn’t even formally exist.
In the fall of 1994, she heard that
a guard at the Forsyth County Jail
was giving inmates art supplies to
work with, so she called to volunteer
her help. She learned that the guard
had left the jail. She also received an
offer to take over the fledgling pro
gram. In December, she did just that.
Roselli moved to Durham less
than a year later, became director of
the Durham Art Guild, began an iden
tical program as part of the Durham
jail’s substance abuse program, and
continued to conunute to Winston-
Salem to teach three other classes.
Currently, the Forsyth County JaU
has art classes for men, for women
and for members of the substance
abuse program, T.EjL.C.H.
Now, however, Roselli is pregnant
and physically can no longer put forth
the effort and driving time it takes to
run both programs. A group of local
artists have volunteered to take over
Look for INMATES, page?
Motivating tomorrow’s leaders
“Don’t mess with the best, ‘cause
the best don’t mess,” chanted roughly
130 rising hi^ school juniors as they
filed into Jones Auditorium recently
at Meredith College in Raleigh.
The students were part of the
N.C.-East Leadership Seminar of the
Hu^ O’Brian Youth Foundation - a
three-day workshop designed to
motivate future leaders.
In an effort to “teach children to
think for themselves,” actor Hugh
O’Brian established the foimdation in
1958. The leadership seminars are
offered throu^out the U.S. at no cost
to the students or their schools. The
program brings together a select
group of students and distinguished
leaders in business, government and
education to discuss present and
future issues such as America’s polit
ical system, communications in the
electronic age and challenges in the
21st century
Last month’s seminar in Raleigh
included seven panels that examined
a host of topics.
One, for example, looked at the
state’s justice system and featured
Burley Mitchell, chief justice of the
state Supreme Court, and Thomas
Hilliard, a lawyer in the Ralei^ firm
of Hilliard & Jones.
The Ralei^ seminiar was orga
nized and run by the Ralei^ Jaycees.
Fimder studies role of Medicaid
A study commissioned by The
Commonwealth Fund in New York
shows that Medicaid is an important
benefit for low-income women - espe
cially those who are mothers.
The study’s authors warn that
since welfare status is one way in
which low-income women qualify for
Medicaid, changes to either pro^am
could significantly increase the num
ber of uninsured poor women.
Some highlights of the study,
“Medicaid’s Role in Insuring Low-
Income Women,” include:
• One out of five American women
with family incomes below 200 per
cent of poverty is covered by
Medicaid, including half of all sin^e.
low-income women with children.
• Even with Medicaid, almost one-
third of low-income women are unin
sured.
• Working puts women at risk of
losing Medicaid coverage. Low-
income women who go to work or
increase their hours or wages
account for more than 40 percent of
those who leave the Medicaid pro
gram.
• One-fourth of all low-income
women enrolled in Medicaid did so
because they were having a child
while another 7 percent enrolled
because of a decline in their health.
Fbr information, call (212) 606-
3842.
Building community
Babcock awards $2.6 million In grants
Winston-Salem
The Mary Reynolds Babcock Fbundation in
June awarded more than $2.6 million in grants
to 54 nonprofits in the Southeast. The selected
organizations work to encourage community
cohesiveness in their respective regions.
Since 1994, the foundation has concentrated
its grantmaking on organizations working to
build community strength. This year, 49 non
profits received funding through the founda
tion’s organizational development program, and
five organizational coalitions received grants
throng its conununity problem-solving pro
gram.
The organizational development program
finances efforts by nonprofits to improve their
long-term effectiveness through better staff
development, planning and communication.
Twenty-three of the grants given in the program
were renewals from the previous year.
The community problem-solving program
funds nonprofits that bring people together
across race and class fines to alleviate specific
community problems. The coalitions receiving
funding under the program are:
• Eau Claire Community of Shalom,
Columbia, S.C. - $15,000 over six months. The
group uses the strength of church congrega
tions and neighborhood residents to tackle com
munity problems such as bigotry and lack of
food or housing.
• Ensley Community Issues Forum,
Birmin^am, Alah. - $100,000 over two years.
The forum combines efforts of residents, neigh
borhood associations, business owners, the city
of Birmin^am and churches to reclaim the
Ensley community, a poor African-American
neighborhood marked by poverty, poor housing
and an abandoned contaminated industrial site.
• The Jeremiah Group, New Orleans, La. -
$100,000 over two years. The group brings reli
gious congregations, public schools, parents,
community organizations and businesses
together to improve local schools.
• Owsley County Action Team, Booneville,
Ky - $83,100 over two years. The team, made up
of farmers, businesspeople, residents and elect
ed officials, works to promote economic devel
opment in the rural Appalachian community of
Booneville.
• The Partnership Project, Greensboro -
$49,650 for one year. The project combines
efforts of Project Greensboro, city government,
Guilford College and nei^borhood residents to
revitalize nei^borhoods in need.
Individual Babcock grant recipients are
located in Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Look for BABCOCK, page 9
BRIEFLY
Foundation hires
new officer
The Foundation for the
Corolinos in Charlotte has
named Robert W. Morris, a
vice president and trust officer
for BB&T, os vice president
for development.
Robert Morris
Meeting to study
Onossis trust
The Jacqueline Onassis lead
trust will be the topic of a
meeting Sept. 12 sponsored
by the North Carolina
Planned Giving Council at
the Holiday Inn-Four Seasons
in Greensboro. Call Sandra
Shell, (910) 732-5289.
New Era plan proposed
A plan to help charities that posed to be matched by the
lost money in last year's col
lapse of the Foundation for
New Era Philanthropy is
being reviewed by a federal
bankruptcy court. The plan
would allow nonprofit groups
to recover 60 to 65 cents on
every dollar they lost in a
financial scandal in which
donated money was sup
bankrupt foundation. Funds
for the recovery plan would
come from a pool of dollars
from charities that received
more money from New Era
than they "invested" in the
foundation. The bankruptcy
court was scheduled to
approve the plan at an Aug.
1 hearing.
Imports
Foundation sut
health researcr
The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation has awarded
$500,000 to a team of
economists and health
experts to study TennCare,
Tennessee's program to
enroll Medicaid patients in
managed care. Chris
Conover, a health policy
expert at Duke, is a member
of the study team.