Bell Sounds for Round Two of CommunityCare Grants

CommunityCare Foundation Inc. recently announced its second round of grants for 2001.

Walter Turnbow, chairman of the CommunityCare board, said the grants totaled about $2.28 million and were made to 40 agencies that serve Northwest Arkansas.

This year’s first round of grants came May 22 and totaled $1.86 million to 21 agencies. During 2000, the first year for the nonprofit foundation’s awards, it gave 101 grants totaling $4.6 million. The two-year grant total is now about $8.7 million.

But two special projects in which the Springdale nonprofit invested heavily this year — All Children Excel in School and the Nonprofit Learning Series — make its actual contribution closer to $5 million for 2001, or a real two-year total of about $9.6 million.

CommunityCare is a product of the November 1998 sale of Northwest Health Systems Inc. of Springdale to Quorum Health Group Inc. of Nashville, Tenn.

Established to benefit the local area, CommunityCare entered its first year with a war chest of $140 million. The money, invested with the Northwest Bank of Minneapolis, previously had grown to $150 million but with market declines is back close to $140 million.

Northwest Health changed owners again Oct. 19, 2000, when Quorum was bought by publicly traded Triad Health Partners Inc. of Dallas for $2.4 billion. But the resale had no effect on the independent local foundation.

Jan. 31 is the deadline for applications for 2002’s first round of funding.