October 2008

Foundation
Board of Directors
President
David C. Heide

Vice President
Noreen Ligino-Kubinski

Treasurer
Philip T. Foster

Secretary
Margaret Lehner, Ed.D.

Brian Andersen
Frank R. Barre
Hon. Irene H. Brodie
Vernon Crawley, D.Ed.
Maria DeCaprio-Sunta
Anthony Q. Drake
Barry Gaw
Katie Maier
Egon J. Menker
John Moore
Omar Najib
Bruce G. Nawara, C.P.A.
William J. Opelka
Debra Piscola
Dick Post
Maureen Ryan
Dennis Shannon
Carolyn Viverito
Sandra Wagner
Jon Weglarz
Cheryl Wilson

Executive Director
Sue Linn

Message from the President
I Have you heard the phrase: Pay it forward? It’s become a popular term and a meaningful way to do something nice for others.

I’d like to ask you to pay it forward by contributing to the Moraine Valley Foundation Scholarship Fund. We provided you with a great start on your education, so we’re asking you to consider giving others the same opportunity. Your donation means so much and can make a tremendous difference for students facing financial hardships. Whether your gift is for a full scholarship or a partial scholarship, your donation can change the life of a student.

We provide students with the tools—an excellent curriculum coupled with exceptional instructors and services. We ask that you assist in providing students with the means. Every dollar you contribute helps, and together we can pay it forward and continue to change many lives.

Sincerely,

Dr. Vernon O. Crawley, Ed.D.
College President
 

Lt. Gene Marcheschi Scholarship supports area firefighters
Area men and women studying fire science at Moraine Valley will benefit from a newly established scholarship fund created by the friends and family of a decorated firefighter and long-time instructor at the college. The Lieutenant Gene Marcheschi Memorial Scholarship Fund is intended to support individual educational studies and promote continuing professional development among area firefighters.

The scholarship fund honors the memory of a man who committed his life to public service as a firefighter and generously shared his knowledge as an  instructor in Moraine Valley’s Fire Science Program. During the course of a 24-year career as a firefighter in Blue Island and Calumet Park, Marcheschi received numerous awards and citations. In 1997, he was named as a  recipient of a medal of valor, the highest commendation for bravery, for his rescue of a young child with Down syndrome trapped in a burning house in Dixmoor. Marcheschi, who died suddenly in May, was a strong advocate of fire science education, training firefighters in Blue Island and Calumet Park.

The Lieutenant Gene Marcheschi Memorial Scholarship is a $1,000 annual award, distributed at a rate of $500 per semester, that can be applied to the costs of tuition,  fees and textbooks purchased at the Moraine Valley Bookstore for the academic year in which the award is made. To be eligible, a student must be a resident of the Moraine Valley college district pursuing a career in fire science, be enrolled in a minimum of six credit hours in fire science during the semester in which the scholarship is awarded, have a cumulative grade point average of 2.5 or higher, demonstrate financial need, and submit a short essay describing his or her financial need and the ways the scholarship award will benefit individual professional development and promote ongoing education in the field.

For more information, contact the Foundation Office at (708) 974-5335 or linns@morainevalley.edu.

From the Foundation President

The last months of a year are typically filled with planning for the coming year, enjoying holiday celebrations with family and friends, and giving thanks for the good things that fill our lives. As 2008 draws to a close, it’s also a great time to consider giving a charitable gift to Moraine Valley Community College.

Making a tax-deductible gift to the college as part of your year-end financial planning can produce tax savings for you while also providing critically needed funds to support college programs and services and help ensure the success of Moraine Valley students. If your employer has a corporate matching program, it can double the amount of your gift.

Charitable gift-giving during the holiday season provides opportunities to honor or remember loved ones or friends through gifts given in their names. It’s also a good way to bring families together by helping someone else in a tangible way. A donation to Moraine Valley’s student emergency assistance fund is just one example of how you and your family can establish a new holiday tradition with a financial gift that will help keep a local resident in school.

Your charitable gifts make a difference in the lives of our students and strengthen our local communities. In these last weeks of 2008, I encourage you to make your tax deductible gift to Moraine Valley. Best wishes to you in the New Year. Thank you.

Sincerely,
David Heide

Thank you Cheryl and Bruce;
Welcome Noreen and Phil
The Foundation Board of Directors Executive Committee thanks Cheryl Wilson and Bruce Nawara for their service and welcomes Noreen Ligino- Kubinski, Vice President and Phil Foster Treasurer to the committee.

Cheryl Wilson, immediate past vice president of the Foundation, is a food service sales manager for PepsiAmericas. Cheryl joined the Foundation Board of Directors in 1997. She served as the Foundation Treasurer form 2000 to 2002 and as the Executive Vice President from 2002 to 2008. Noreen Ligino- Kubinski is taking over as vice president. She is a community affairs manager with Comcast. Noreen joined the Foundation Board of Directors in 2004. She has served on the Golf Outing committee, and has chaired Starry, Starry Night.

Bruce Nawara, president of Nawara Financial Advisors, Inc., joined the Foundation Board of Directors in 2001 and served as Foundation treasurer from 2001 to 2008. Phil Foster will be taking over as the Foundation’s treasurer. Phil, a financial analyst at Andrew, A ComScope Company, joined the Foundation Board of Directors in 2003, and has served on the Golf Outing and Finance committees.

The giving of a charitable gift to the Moraine Valley Foundation can help individuals and families reduce tax liabilities in a number of ways: provide immediate tax deductions by reducing a giver’s adjusted gross income for a taxable year; provide a carryover donation that may be applied to reduce total liabilities in a future year; or reduce total tax payments for an estate.

Year-end gifts to Moraine Valley have an immediate impact. Donors can direct their gifts to provide student scholarships, to fund grants that provide short-term assistance to students who face financial emergencies that would otherwise force them to drop out of school, or to support specific programs and services of the college, such as career programs and workforce development. Unrestricted gifts provide the most flexibility since they can be used by the college to meet its greatest needs.

While individuals and families should consult with a tax advisor, attorney, or qualified financial planning professional to review their particular situations and determine how specific donations may affect their tax payments and estate planning, five common options for gift giving typically provide the following kinds of benefits to donors:

• Gifts of Cash—provide immediate tax deductions in the tax year in which they are given. If the amount of the gift exceeds 50 percent of a donor’s adjusted gross income, a carryover of the excess amount may apply beyond the first year.

• Gifts of Securities—may include publicly traded stock, mutual funds, closely held stock and S corporation stock. The transfer of stocks that have appreciated in value typically has the greatest value to the college and provides the greatest tax advantages to donors: avoidance of capital gains taxes for stocks owned for more than a year as well as charitable tax deductions. In the case of stock losses, donors may wish to sell the stock and give the proceeds to the college in order to realize the loss and take allowable tax deductions.

• Gifts of Life Insurance—can be claimed as tax deductions by naming Moraine Valley as the owner or beneficiary of the policy. In cases where donors continue to pay premiums on policies, additional tax deductions may apply.

• Gifts of Real Estate—property that is not subject to a mortgage and has appreciated in value may provide a number of tax advantages: avoidance of capital gains taxes, income tax deductions and the opportunity to reduce the value of your taxable estate. If donors so choose, property transfers can be arranged so that individuals or families can continue to use the property for life.

• Gifts that Provide Income—cash, stock or property may be placed in a charitable remainder trust that will also pay the donor income for life.

We would be happy to talk with you about gifts you may be considering. To discuss a year-end financial gift, please call the Foundation office at (708) 974-5335.

George Daly’s last swing of the game earned him the $10,000 hole-in-one prize.
 

Bob Sterkowitz, Moraine Valley’s chief financial officer, accepts his raffle prize from Foundation volunteer Patti Hickey.

Golf outing a big hit
Each year, the Moraine Valley Community College Foundation golf outing raises thousands of dollars for scholarships and emergency aid grants for students, and this year was no exception.

The Foundation would like to recognize and thank the Aileen S. Andrew Foundation for its event sponsorship, and the other major sponsors, including:
AT&T
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois
Call One
Comcast
ComEd
DDA Architects I
IHC Construction Companies, LLC
Legat Architects
MB Financial
Nawara Financial Advisors
Noral Diamond Jewelers
PepsiAmericas
Rosenthal, Murphey & Coblentz
Teng & Associates
 

This year’s golf outing, held Sept. 10 at Silver Lake Country Club, had the participation of more than 200 golfers, dinner guests and volunteers who together helped the Foundation raise $35,000. This support allows the Foundation to help students get a few steps closer to realizing their educational and professional goals.

The Foundation also would like to congratulate George Daly, who won $10,000 with a hole-in-one on the 18th, and thank him for graciously giving back $1,000 to the Foundation’s scholarship fund. Many thanks to George, and all of the event participants who made the 27th annual golf outing a success.

Without their support, the Foundation would not have been able to host this successful event.

If you had to use one word to describe Sandra Biedron—you couldn’t. You’d need at least a dozen. She’s an inventor, mentor, administrator, fund raiser, researcher, world traveler, organizer, discoverer, author, and lecturer. Add to that home restorer, gardener, airplane aficionado, and a dog lover, and you’ve got the precise personification of a doer who does it all with an energy level that could rival most toddlers in the midst of a toy store.

A physicist by profession, the Moraine Valley alum serves as the director of the Department of Defense Project office at Argonne National Laboratory where she dedicates her science background to connecting programs sponsored by the Department of Energy with those sponsored by the Department of Defense, as well as to building new programs. “On the technical side, my main expertise is particle accelerators and developing new sources of light with them that are laser-like across the electromagnetic spectrum, from the microwave to the hard X-ray regimes,” said Sandra, who also acts as a consultant for Sincrotrone Trieste in Basovizza, Italy, where she oversees an electron laser project.”

She also holds a patent and has another pending. In her spare time, she entertains colleagues from around the world and is working on obtaining a pilot’s license. Through it all, she and her husband of 10 years, who also is a physicist, have been undertaking the rehabbing of an historic, century-old home in Chicago’s Beverly area to the National Registry’s historic standards. “I am often seen swinging a sledge hammer. Using what has good bones and just making it nice is fun and takes my mind off pure techie stuff,” she said.

 Her interest in science began as a child. “I liked science, technology and medicine as far back as I can think. My parents and family members also had an impact on me as many of them are techies,” Sandra said. “I was lucky enough to grow up on seven acres— a pretty big chunk of land, especially when you are three feet tall. My father taught me to use walkie- alkies and then plotted the land and markers, like trees and buildings, on a map. It was like the ham radio way of playing hide and seek. I think this is how I first learned about graphs and the Cartesian coordinate system.”

That interest received more cultivation while she was a student at Moraine Valley, thanks to former professors like Dr. Anne Lesak Scott, John Popp and Fenwick Taylor. “I still stay close with several of my former teachers from Moraine Valley. They motivated you in the classroom and you wanted to be friends with them,” she said. “I highly recommend a community college. I think it’s a great start. I have never been into the big classes. It was too hard for me to be with 200 people or more in a classroom. I needed to connect,” said Sandra, who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Trinity Christian College and her doctorate degree at Lund University, the oldest university in Sweden.

And just how does this woman continue to keep up this pace and accomplish all she has in her short 35 years? “I don’t sleep,” she said. “And I have some pretty amazing colleagues. You can’t do it alone.” One of those colleagues is Quentin Saulter, a GS-15 program manager with the Naval Directed Energy Program. “The energy of just one Sandra can power a fleet of carriers for the U.S. Navy,” Quentin said. “She definitely breaks the mold of traditional physicists. She is a real team player and her knowledge is enabling the Department of Defense to develop ideas into new systems to insure we have the number one military of the future.”

Sandra has contributed plenty of those ideas, and she’s not done yet. “My goal is to make the world a smaller place through technology and understanding,” she said.

The Moraine Valley Community College Foundation sought the grant in an effort to expand the reach of the college’s Student Emergency Financial Assistance Fund. Established and administered by the Foundation, the fund provided 76 grants to Moraine Valley students during its first year of operation in 2007- 2008.

The Dreamkeepers program grant will be used by the Moraine Valley Foundation to increase the number of grants available to meet student emergency needs and to establish an endowment fund to ensure the availability of emergency needs grants in upcoming years.

“Thousands of students every year are faced with the decision of either staying in college or dropping out to take care of something unforeseen,” said Donald Lassere, senior vice president of programs at Scholarship America. “It’s really been our goal with the Dreamkeepers program to alleviate some of the pressure around the decision by providing financial support to those students.”

Scholarship America is one of the nation’s largest nonprofit, private-sector scholarship and educational support organizations. Its Dreamkeepers program was developed in 2005 with support by the Lumina Foundation for Education and is funded by the Wal- Mart Foundation grant. In its first two years, the program provided nearly $595,393 to 1,566 students.

Moraine Valley’s current enrollment is the highest in its 41-year history, and the number of students in need of emergency assistance to bridge a short-term financial need continues to grow. Individual and corporate donations are needed to help ensure the availability of these critically needed student emergency assistance grants now and in upcoming years.

For more information about supporting the Moraine Valley Student Emergency Financial Assistance Fund or to learn how students can apply for needed funds, contact the Foundation Office at (708) 974-5335 or linns@morainevalley.edu.

As costs for higher education rise, Moraine Valley continues to attract increasing numbers of students in need of financial aid to begin or continue their college studies. Although Moraine Valley is affordable, it is beyond the means of many students and their families. A full-time student who carries an average course load of 15 credit hours per semester will pay approximately $2,460 per year for tuition and fees. Average costs for textbooks and transportation will bring the total expenses to approximately $5,811.

With an average student age older than 24, Moraine Valley serves a significant number of adult students, many of whom struggle to support themselves and their families while attending college. A sudden job loss, a personal or family financial emergency, or even the loss of an expensive textbook can cause Moraine Valley students to drop out of school, derailing educational plans and opportunities to prepare for gainful employment.

Recognizing the impact a financial crisis can have on student success, the Moraine Valley Foundation  established the Student Emergency Assistance Fund in 2007 with an initial contribution of $5,000. That amount quickly grew to $20,000 as word of the program spread and students with emergency needs were referred to the program. During the 2007-2008 academic year, the fund provided 76 grants to students for books, supplies, transportation and food. The average grant was $234, and 100 percent of the grant recipients completed their studies during the semester of their grant awards.

Tax-deductible donations to the Student Emergency Financial Assistance Fund are used to subsidize immediate student emergency needs. Donations also can be directed to increase the endowment established earlier this year to ensure the continued availability of resources in coming years.

The Student Emergency Financial Assistance Fund helps increase the number of graduates by providing aid for students who might otherwise be forced to drop out because of a financial emergency. Most importantly, whether money from this fund replaces a lost textbook, or puts food on a family’s table, it has a significant and personal impact on the lives of the students who are helped.

Lisa Bly feels very comfortable at Moraine Valley. She did then as a student and she does now as an employee. The look of the college has changed a bit since she roamed the campus as a student, but the mission of the college to drive student success has remained the same. Now Lisa is part of the team at Moraine Valley working to ensure that future students, as well as members of the business community, achieve success.

As the assistant dean in the college’s Workforce Development and Community Services (WDCS) subdivision, a position she started in July, Lisa is delighted to be back on campus. “I’m finding it exciting and there’s a lot to learn,” she said. Her responsibilities include overseeing WDCS’s day-to-day operations, the financials, marketing, and the strategic plan for the subdivision, as well as special projects sponsored through WDCS for noncredit students, career programs and businesses.

Her professional experience coupled with her education made Lisa an ideal candidate for the position. Following her graduation with an associate degree from Moraine Valley, Lisa transferred to Governors State University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in media communications, and a master’s degree in communications and training.

Finishing college took a lot of determination. “I was older when I came back to college at Moraine Valley,” said Lisa, who originally started her studies at Harold Washington College in Chicago. All while she attended classes, she was raising two children and working full- time for the United States Postal Service, where she conducted employee training.“ My job was to make sure managers effectively communicated with employees and vice versa,” she said. In addition, Lisa was charged with payroll and soon afterward was training regional managers on how to do complete payroll on a new software system.”

“This consistently was a challenge,” said Lisa, who also volunteered her time until just recently serving on the GSU alumni board. “While I was working on one project, I was busy finding another. It was a one-woman show, and that wasn’t always easy.”

While there were challenges and only so many hours in the day, Lisa knew returning to college was the smart choice. “I came to Moraine Valley because honestly, as a nontraditional student, I was looking for affordability and a quality education, and it was close to my home. I was able to finance it myself, so I was blessed,” she said.

Lisa has worn many hats in her professional career and is also very proud of the newest hats she wears. “I’m a team mom and a concert mom,” she said. On the weekends, Lisa enjoys watching her son play football at his grade school. She also spends time attending her high school daughter’s band concerts. “And, in my spare time, I enjoy total silence,” she said.

As for her position with Moraine Valley, she says she’s very much enjoying her new career. “Dr. Crawley (Moraine Valley’s president) said something at the orientation that has stuck with me,” Lisa said. “He told us if we were comfortable about the way we do things, we’ll know it’s a fit. Based on what I’ve seen so far, it feels like a great fit.”

Nominations are being accepted now for the 2009 Pacesetter Award and the Distinguished Alumnus Award. Pacesetter nominees must have received a degree or certificate from Moraine Valley after June 30, 2004. Distinguished Alumnus nominees must have received a degree or certificate from Moraine Valley before June 30, 2004. Self-nominations are encouraged.

The selection committee considers such factors as:

• outstanding success and distinction in his/her chosen field
• humanitarian service that has proven greatly beneficial to society
• continued interest in and support of education and community colleges
• overcoming life’s obstacles

Nomination forms are available at www.morainevalley.edu/foundation. Completed nomination forms should be submitted no later than Jan. 9, 2009, to:
       Moraine Valley Community College
       College and Community Relations, D106
       9000 W. College Pkwy.
       Palos Hills, IL 60465-0937