2022 Pooled Fund Grantees

• ARCH Community Housing — Housing for Essential Workers $20,000
• Blaine County Charitable Fund—Emergency Assistance Grant Program $18,000
• Higher Ground Sun Valley— Higher Ground Cycling Program $18,275
• Idaho Trails Association— Youth Trail Program 2022 $6,400
• Ketchum Fire Department— Back Country Rescue $20,000
• Kids Mountain Fund— Rotarippers Lease Package $6,500
• Men’s Second Chance Living— MSCL House Operations $20,000
• Swiftsure Therapeutic Ranch— Safety Surround Wall $14,200
• The Advocates— Healthy Child Development Program $15,000
• The Alliance of Idaho— Support for Legal Services $20,000
• The Crisis Hotline— My Life Matters Enhancement $20,000
• The Hunger Coalition—The Value of Trust $20,000
• The Space Idaho— Forward Learning Scholars $18,900
• Wood River Fire & Rescue— Chain of Survival $18,526

Partial Funding

• Kiwanis Club of Hailey— Pavilion for Lion’s Park $2,400
• Syringa Mountain School— Literacy Program $2,400
• The Nature Conservancy— Silver Creek Conservation & Ed. Ctr. $2,400
• Wood River Land Trust— Colorado Gulch Orchard $2,400
• FG: The Community Library— Blaine County Teen Literacy Team $2,500

Q: Tell us a bit about your upbringing.

A: I was born in Summit Hill, Pennsylvania. That’s Pennsylvania Dutch country. I have many fond memories of my aunt buying vegetables from the horse-drawn carriages as the Amish farmers trotted by with their farm goods. I love shoe-fly pie and corn cakes and all of the Pennsylvania Dutch dishes that my grandmother used to make. We spent every summer there picking huckleberries and hiking. We are going back to Lake Harmony, Penn. this summer for a family reunion.

Because my father was in the oil business and worked as a geologist, my family lived in over a dozen places in the U.S while I was growing up. Anywhere there was oil was where we went! We had to be flexible as children because we attended over 14 schools during our childhood.

Q: How did you find your way to Sun Valley?

A: My husband, Jack, and I raised our boys in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they went through junior high, high school and college. When they were teenagers, we started coming up here to ski because Lake Tahoe was so crowded during the winter season. Going to Tahoe would be these 3-hour trips that turned into sitting on the road for 8 hours. We have been skiing in Sun Valley for the past 40 years and never stood in a lift line!

The agreement with my husband—he has since passed away—was that if we were going to live in Sun Valley, it had to be in an authentic house. So, we moved into a hand-built log cabin. It’s a cute, petite treasure box. The builders, a married couple, actually sat on the floor and ran the logs through a log-peeler.

Q: What are your current and past positions with WRWF?

A: I previously served as a board member for six years and was the vice president under Joanne Wetherell before I became president. I think it’s important to know who our presidents were and what they did, to make sure they’re not forgotten—each one of us has built her foundation on the president who came before her.

I’ve always been part of our Grants Committee and I’ve also been on the Communications Committee. Now, I now spend my time as Chair of the Presidents’ Council and also chair the Nominating Committee, so I’m the first person someone will make contact with when they submit their application. If our current President, Terri Bullock, our interim Vice President of Leadership, LeeAnne Linderman, or a chair of a committee recommends someone to be moved to a leadership position, I’ll begin the process by sending the woman who was recommended a Leadership Application. Those of us on the Nominating Committee also request interviews with the person who was recommended. After we vote our approval, the Board members vote their approval.

As a past President and Chair of the Presidents’ Council, I help other past presidents mentor our current president. I am often asked to clarify things for our Board. We, as members of the council, consider ourselves as a WRWF ‘think tank.’

Q: What other commitments do you have outside of WRWF?

A: My husband used to be on The Hunger Coalition’s board, so I’ve been very connected with them for years. I am also active with The Senior Connection and volunteer at the 160-acre Springs family ranch in Gannet, gardening and then taking the organic vegetables from the farm to the Senior Connection in big bins. They’ve got a great in-house restaurant there and use the vegetables in their lunches and in the 200 or 300 meals they deliver every day.

Before it snows, we pick hundreds of tomatoes for The Senior Connection to brighten and nourish their salads. And potatoes! And squash! My nails get pretty short from working out there every week, or sometimes even three times a week during harvest season. We often also take extra and unusual items we have grown, such as tomatillos and kale, to The Hunger Coalition and they hand it out on Thursdays at their Bellevue facility.

I am also involved with the Ketchum Community Library and we have begun the Jack Grove Writer-In-Residence program to honor my late husband. We have been so fortunate to have Cheryl Strayed, who wrote the best-selling memoir titled “Wild,” as our inaugural Writer-in-Residence at the Hemingway House, as well as Betsy Quammen, who wrote “American Zion,” and is now writing “True West: Sorting Realities on the Far Side of America.” Betsy is also interviewing our Book Club to touch on their experiences of the true West.

Q: What would you say are some of your proudest accomplishments as a board member, board president and vice president of the Wood River Women’s Foundation?

Two of the simplest things that I was able to encourage please me as I look back. During Marcia Liebich’s term—she was our third President—I helped the Foundation transition from paper newsletters to email newsletters. We went from a printed News Brief every three months to an every-month newsletter via email to help keep our members better informed.

As President, I partnered with Louisa Moats, our past Education Committee chair, to change our educational briefings from once a year to about once every month. The briefings have added greatly to our knowledge of what is needed in the valley and brought to WRWF an understanding of where our grants can do the most for our community. The idea was instead of having a ‘big hurrah’ event once a year, we could constantly monitor and check the pulse of the valley by going to talks and listening to what the executive directors, principals of schools, and doctors and nurses had to say. We started going around to the schools, hospitals and housing districts and doing informational talks. It was, and still is, great fun.

I was also thrilled to appoint Terri Bullock as president because of her great business background. We currently spend many hours at Hank & Sylvies, talking about the future of the organization.