By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel
Waukesha - The Waukesha County Community Foundation awarded grants totaling $1.1 million to organizations providing services primarily in Waukesha County, though some are given to charities in Milwaukee and neighboring counties at the donors' direction, the organization announced Monday.
Dave Schultz, president of the fund, said grants are determined through a competitive application process or through the wishes of large donors who establish permanent endowments. About 250 organizations benefitted from the grants, he said.
Another $1.2 million was distributed to the Humane Animal Welfare Society of Waukesha, which finished a fund raising campaign for facility expansion. The Community Foundation managed and invested the funds, as it does for some other organizations, Schultz said.
Since making its first grants in 2000, the Waukesha County Community Foundation has made grants totaling over $7 million, according to Schultz.
About Laurel Walker
Laurel Walker covered local, school and county government for 20 years -- the last half of that at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- before she was named Waukesha County columnist in 1997. Today she writes about the people, places and events around metropolitan Milwaukee with a broad suburban focus.
She was the youngest of nine children raised on a central Wisconsin farm before leaving the nest for journalism studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a masters degree at the University of Oregon.
She has spent the last half of her life in Waukesha County, where she and her husband raised two sons. Though she has a fondness for life in Waukesha, she eagerly partakes in the culture of the big city to the east and the recreation of the forests to the west. With sons in the arts, she has a special fondness for symphonic music concerts and art museums. She finds peace in a good book at a Northwoods getaway weekend, adventure in family visits to the east and west coasts, and satisfaction in a column well-written that reaches readers.