Jennifer Turrentine (left and right) made a donation to Northwest Alliance Community Foundation's (NACF's) endowment fund, which will benefit nonprofits like Salvation Army (center) - a grantee of NACF.
More than anything else, Jennifer Turrentine values the people in her life. She has rich family ties, neighbors she knows well and cares for, and a cherished group of lifelong friends. Even more than the sunsets from her lakefront cabin’s porch or the wildlife roaming her yard, Jennifer finds joy and meaning through connections with people.
One way the Webster transplant has gotten to know people in her area is through volunteering.
“Every couple of weeks, I work at the food shelf, and I just rotated off the board of Northwest Passage,” said Jennifer. “Volunteering is a really good way to meet people.”
Jennifer has also served as board chair of the Northwest Alliance Community Foundation (NACF), an SCVF affiliate community foundation that serves northern Polk and all of Burnett Counties. Jennifer sees many opportunities to enhance the quality of life in that area. According to the United Way, around 33% of households in Polk County and 41% of households in Burnett County make incomes below what is needed to afford the cost of basic expenses.
For several years, Jennifer led NACF’s nonprofit education efforts, and she currently leads the grants committee. Watching those grants reach nonprofits in her community brings her joy and reminds her that grants can have a significant impact for the nonprofits that receive them.
“As an aging baby boomer, I was thrilled that we were able to fund a handicapped-accessible door for the Webster Senior Center,” said Jennifer. “We were also able to grant dollars to both the Burnett County Workforce Resource Center and the Salvation Army for kids aging out of foster care. We’ve been able to help organizations that help our population pay for utility bills and install ramps into their houses and provide car rides to the doctor’s office and put food on people’s tables. You realize there are needs that we take for granted, and that other people can’t take those things for granted. We can all help with those things.”
Recently, Jennifer decided to personally help her community forever by donating $100,000 to NACF’s endowment fund. The generous gift will allow NACF to continue making grants to nonprofits with limited resources that are doing a “yeoman’s job,” as she puts it. Because Jennifer is donating to the endowment fund, she knows her gift will be wisely invested by SCVF and that the earnings will directly grant dollars to those nonprofits forever.
“I realize more and more the advantages I’ve had in life,” Jennifer explained. “I have family, friends and love. My parents believed in a good education, and they believed in me enough to know that I could make a good life for myself, and I have. By donating now to the endowment fund, knowing that a portion of that money will be used for grants, I get to see how my own money is being spent. That’s a thrill.”
Jennifer also plans to leave a legacy gift through her estate to NACF, a gift she sees as an ongoing way to care for the community she has grown to love, even after she is gone.
“I feel really strongly about supporting the work NACF does,” she said. “I usually make my donations anonymously, but this time, I’m putting my name out there in the hopes of influencing other people to donate. I’m putting my money where my mouth is, because I want to make my little piece of this world just a little bit better. And I know a lot of other people do, too.”
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