As the Excutive Director of the Cadillac Area YMCA, I've found the Cadillac Area Community Foundation to be an incredible asset to our community. Throught their close work with youth they've formed a very dynamic and enegetic Youth Advisroy Committee (YAC) that annaully gives out funding to advance the needs of youth in our Community. At the Y they've supported collaborative efforts in programs like Teen Impact and the development of our Teen Center. YAC also participated in a 3 way partnership with the Y and Club Cadillac to provide a Christmas Card service that generated awareness about the Y, the foundations, and Club Cadillac.

The foundation has also been instrumental in other collaborative efforts. Most recently they helped fund the Lincoln Afterschool Prgoram that provides a Heatlhy Snack and vigerous play five days per week to fight the obesity epedemic in our youth. Additionally the program provides 3 days of tutoring in Math or Reading for kids that are struggling in those areas. Withouth their funding this program would not have been possible.

I've found the staff team at the foundation to be extremely approachable and ready to help us think through how best to frame our programs so they are best positioned to recieve funding and succeed. They've been straightforward to identify potential obstacles or programs that lack the integrity to be funded.

We also use the foundation to hold our endowment fund. It's been excellent to have a local team handy to answer our questions and be our advocates for developing and utilitizing this fund. I've been extremly thankful that their leadership removes any worry I have regarding the security and growth of our endowment.