KATIE’S SEED MONEY FUND
By: Linda Simmons
Community Family Development is taking a new and important step in its 37 year history. The Board of Directors has created Katie’s Seed Money Fund for the purpose of developing new and enriching early childhood programs along with sustaining existing ones. The fund honors the memory of Katie Scholl and the Scholl family who have supported Community Family Development generously for over ten years.
Katherine Claire Scholl was born on January 21, 1973. She passed away on March 3, 1998. Katie was an environmentalist, outdoorswoman, poet, world peace advocate and devoted friend to many people and causes.
Katie volunteered to read to the kids at Community Family Development with her Dad, Cliff. They represented the Kiwanis Club of Poughkeepsie at the “Charlie Brown Breakfast.” They had great fun on those occasions.
Soon after Katie started to work after college, she discovered what was thought to be an injury on her knee from a biking accident but was really cancer. She continued to work as long as she could while being treated. She lived valiantly with humor and courage for 22 months after the time of diagnosis. She lost the leg she tried to save with treatments, and lost her life. But before she reached the end of her life, she taught herself how to bike and swim again with one leg and she enjoyed sharing her poetry at “open mikes.”
The first donation that the Scholl family made to CFD was a storybook set with puppets and a donation check. The storybook was about gardening and the puppets were veggies. This set had been given to Katie while she was in the hospital. Because the donation accompanied the gardening book set the check became “Katie’s Seed Money” to the Scholl family. Seed money, in historical terms, represents the future to a family – it is growth, it is sustenance, it is life. As well as being a symbol to the Scholl family, this is a symbol to CFD of the future.
On June 26, 2008 from 4:30-6:30, Community Family Development is hosting a reception at the Alumnae House, The Inn at Vassar College as a kick off event for Katie’s Seed Money Fund. CFD is asking for the support of the community to make this event a success.
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