Venice Yacht Club Charitable Foundation

Fellow Members,

Endowment: We currently have $80,624 in our Endowment Fund with Gulf Coast Community Foundation and $46,125 in our money market fund. $18,500 is committed to the Venice Performing Arts Center Fund for Excellence. The balance of $27,625 is available for scholarships and grants.

Scholarships: I am pleased to report the Committee awarded three separate $1,000 scholarships. We received five scholarship applicants through the Rotary Futures College Resource Center. Our scholarship guidelines give preference to persons pursuing a career in hospitality or marine related fields. The committee selected the following three applicants for $1,000 scholarships: Teresa DeNiro (hotel management at FSU), Marco Verost (Hospitality Management at SCF and UCF), and Thomas Grissinger (Marine Transportation at Mass Marine Academy).

Venice Performing Arts Center: Committee representatives met at the Venice Performing Arts Center on April 21 to consider an informal grant application for completing an internal and external box office. Part of the grant will include a plaque inside and outside the building recognizing the Venice Yacht Club Charitable Foundation. The details of the project and grant are being refined. The Committee is hopeful the grant application can be finalized and fully reviewed by our June meeting.

May 1 Grant Cycle: Our current bi-annual grant application cycle ended on May 1. Applications were to be considered by the Committee at our May 20 meeting.

Publicity and Promotion: New board liaison, Tony Zumbano, presented a list of ideas to get better publicity both within the Yacht Club and in the general community for the good work being done by the VYC Foundation. The Committee agrees we need to do a better job with publicity. More effort will be made to have photographs placed in the Currents and local newspapers.

VYCCF Committee:
Wayne Hall – Chair, P/C Joe Dombrowski, P/C Merle Graser, Warren Major, Joe Miller, Jack Murphy, Paul Nasipak, John O’Donnell, Judith Wilcox, and P/C Tony Zumbano.

Charting a course to a better community…