By Tim Leeds
Tom Reynolds announced at the State of the City luncheon yesterday that the Jim Sleeter fund would be matching nearly $14,000 in funds for projects by community service organizations this year.
"All of them were projects that will benefit ... are intended to have many people benefit from the project," he said this morning. Reynolds, executive director of the Montana State University-Northern Foundation, said the fund would match $3,400 for a project by the Havre Optimists to install drinking fountains and do a field upgrade at Optimists Park; $3875 to the Soroptimist International of Havre for projects at the Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Kill Site, the park the hospital is planning south of the care center and at the planned downtown park and city square; $2,000 to the Havre Lions for a project to install bathroom and shower facilities at the Havre Ice Dome; $3,500 to the Havre Rotary Club for projects to install a walk-in freezer at the North Havre Community Services Food Bank and for the summer reading program at the Havre-Hill County Public Library; $500 to the Havre Jaycees for their Shooter Education program, and $500 to the Havre Kiwanis Club for projects to be further identified.
Reynolds said the Sleeter fund will match, dollar-for-dollar, funds the organizations put forward for the projects. He said they have had the funds for about a year, and this was the first opportunity they had to make matching distributions.
"So it was kind of fun," he said.
The fund was established by a contribution to the foundation made in Sleeter's will. Reynolds said the contribution stipulated that the interest earned on the money will be distributed in matching funds to service organizations for the first 20 years, after which they money will revert to the MSUN Foundation.
