The Carlsbad Community Foundation is celebrating its 45th anniversary at its annual banquet Thursday evening, and our community is so fortunate to have such a wonderful organization working on behalf of our residents. If you read through the Foundation’s list of accomplishments, it involves hundreds of thousands of dollars being awarded in scholarships and to organizations.
The Foundation owes its origins to the generosity of A.J. Crawford, who went from being a poor sheepherder into a millionaire. When Crawford died in 101, he left hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. Ultimately, the Crawford endowment became eligible for a variety of uses. The Foundation was officially created in 1978.
Since then, the organization has only had three directors, John Mills, Jim Harrison and Mike Antiporda. It says a lot about your organization when its directors each serve for such a long time. There is also a very dedicated group of board members who volunteer their time in support the Foundation. I previously enjoyed serving on the Foundation board.
The organization handles a wide variety of endowment funds, which are used to award scholarships and grants. The permanent portion of the funds continues to grow and generate additional funds. The Foundation also handles a variety of demand funds, which are used for supporting positive community activities. We work with the Foundation every year on projects such as our energy summit, the prayer breakfast and our Fourth of July Celebration.
In fact, the Foundation works behind the scenes on so many different projects that you would probably be hard pressed to find something happening in our community that is positive that they aren’t supporting. The Foundation is essential to Carlsbad’s scholarship process. This is all done with a very small staff. According to the web page, in addition to Antiporda, Christine Estrada is the program assistant, Jan Nesbit is finance director and Jennifer Granger is program director.
For many years, Mike Currier was the voice of the Carlsbad Community Foundation. Rightfully regarded as Carlsbad’s best public speaker, Currier would share the story about this amazing organization at the annual meeting. We will all be thinking of Mike during this year’s meeting, and he will be greatly missed.
Thanks again to the Carlsbad Community Foundation for all of its hard work.
Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway