Serving on the Niagara Community Foundation’s grants committee was an eye-opening experience for Louise Veres.
She had returned to Niagara in 2016 after living and working in the Burlington and Oakville area for many years and found herself with a front-row seat to the wonderful ways people were making Niagara a better place.
But it also showed her the extent of the need.
“The biggest thing that stood out for me was the need,” Veres recalls. “There was just so much need in so many different areas.”
In addition to her role on the Grants Committee, Veres also served two terms on the board of directors, and when her term was up “I was very sad to leave. I was not ready for my term to be up because I can honestly say that this has been the most, efficient, organized, fun and rewarding organization I’ve ever been involved with, and I’ve done a lot.”
The solution? Find a way to keep the connection — forever.
“That’s when David and I started to talk about how we could stay involved and how we could help,” Louise said. “And we had the ability to do something, so we decided we would create our own fund and hopefully, the legacy will live on.”
Local Community Fund The Veres Family Fund is unrestricted, meaning the Foundation can decide where the need is greatest. “The Niagara Community Foundation does such an amazing job of supporting the community, that creating as much flexibility for the organization to utilize the funds seemed like the right thing to do,” David said. As an endowment, “it ensures that 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now we and NCF will be able to help support a strong Niagara community.”
And Louise and David also have the satisfaction of seeing the connection continue in other ways.
“Our daughter Emily serves on the Environmental Grants Committee,” Louise said, a result of Louise’s efforts to tap Niagara College environmental students to help review applications for their environmental merit.
“This is an important thing to us,” David said. “We believe in the commitment to community as a family.”