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The Board of Directors with the Executive Director met on Saturday morning the 21st of February, 2009 at Hardin House to review the former Strategic Plan of 2003-2008 and to plan for Foundation initiatives going forward. A discussion of our history reminded us what a remarkable impact the Phil Hardin Foundation has had in the State of Mississippi, while simultaneously recognizing that there is still much to do.
Our forty-five year history has provided us useful information with which to further our charter of “helping to improve the education of Mississippians”. Tangible evidence of our successful grant making and the tremendous changes in the landscape and culture of our fair State abound. Our funding for Mississippi Public Broadcasting and the establishment of the on-going Thinking and Writing Institute, The University of Mississippi’s National Geographic Geography Alliance, the Children’s Room at the Museum of Natural Science in Jackson, the restoration of The Riley Center and the emergence of the safe, growing, healthy community of Jonestown in the Delta, are just a few of the examples of our funding initiatives that demonstrate our wide-spread, permanent impact across the State.
While not all of our initiatives have had the effect we desired, it has been a learning process, and due to some extent to underestimating the post-Katrina chaos. In other instances a turnover in leadership or key personnel prevented successful implementation.
With this knowledge the directors of the Phil Hardin Foundation recognize that a more concerted focus on our grant-making is in order and have therefore established new funding criteria for this year. They are:
- Continued investment in Early Childhood Education
- A focus on Community –Based Initiatives (Meridian and Lauderdale County)
- Emergent opportunities where the Phil Hardin Foundation can be proactive and flexible
In its desire to be responsive and flexible, the Board of Directors determined that the Foundation would set funding initiatives each year, meeting on an annual basis the third Saturday of February, rather than our former five year planning meeting. This allows the Foundation to meet critical funding needs that may arise. |
EARLY EDUCATION |
To increase the number of children ready for kindergarten.
I was probably a troublesome child with my curiosity, because I asked a lot of questions and I loved to just sit in a room with grown people talking, anyone talking. My mother has told me how I would sit between two people, setting off for a ride in the car, as we used to do on Sunday, and say, “Now start talking!” My ears would just open like morning glories.
~Eudora Welty From Conversations with Eudora Welty
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Rationale: Recent rapid, far reaching changes in the conditions of child-rearing constitute a powerful challenge to families and other institutions to adapt to new circumstances, as researchers like David Hamburg and Mel Levine have shown. The recent outpouring of research on brain development and learning stresses that different minds learn differently, demonstrating the importance of the availability of diverse strategies to move children toward improved school performance and career success and challenging those who still believe in a one-size-fits-all educational philosophy. Caring parents, concerned citizens, and other appropriate community resources and services that enable children “to grow up healthy and vigorous, inquiring and problem solving, decent, and constructive” must be clearly available, visible, and usable, thereby creating in families “a tangible basis for hope . . . with the perception of opportunity and paths toward its fulfillment” (David Hamburg).
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Community-Based Initiatives Meridian and Lauderdale County
The Phil Hardin Foundation has evaluated its state-wide focus over its last forty-five year history. The inception of the Foundation which was one of the first foundations established in Mississippi and at the time the largest, has been instrumental in the establishment of other grant-making institutions throughout the State and in attracting funding from foundations located outside of our fair State. That broad focus has touched the lives of people in nearly every community in Mississippi. As such, the directors are looking homeward to the needs and issues confronting the city of Meridian and Lauderdale County.
Emergent Opportunities and Critical Needs of Mississippi
The Phil Hardin Foundation has recognized that in this current climate we must be responsive to the needs of our Magnolia State. The Board of Directors wish to be flexible and proactive in helping to solve the issues that arise in these uncertain times. Therefore, the third focus area for the coming year will be to act expeditiously and proactively to issues that impact our citizens and our communities throughout Mississippi that will improve the education of all our citizens. |
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