John Almond, founder and executive director of Dream Center Golden Triangle, still remembers bringing up the idea of the nonprofit’s Bedz4Kidz program in 2018 to the Lowndes Community Foundation task forces.
While the idea of gifting a bed to as many low-income children as possible seemed lofty, Almond knew he had all the belief needed for it to succeed.
He just needed a bit of funding to get the ball rolling, and luckily, LCF had $5,000 to spare.
“We didn’t have two nickels to rub together as (the Dream Center),” Almond said. “… When it started, there were only six of us. … We were able to (grow with that initial funding and) build a lot of beds for the children. … We place 10 to 15 beds every week somewhere in the Golden Triangle.”
That idea, along with several others, ranging from encouraging legislation in 2019 to ban kratom in Lowndes County to the creation of the Fresh Start Tiny Home Village on Airline Road by the Golden Triangle Regional Homeless Coalition, were all kick-started by LCF’s task forces, Chanley Rainey, LCF co-chair, told The Dispatch.
LCF, an affiliate of CREATE Foundation in Tupelo, is a charitable foundation that uses its endowment to provide grant funding for nonprofits and community organizations aiming to benefit Lowndes County.
The foundation’s five task forces each aim to address different areas, including education, crime and addiction, poverty, community outreach and leadership vision. LCF reconvened those groups Tuesday evening for the first time in two years, with a goal of pushing the groups to start meeting more regularly again.
Rainey said part of the reason for the break was because LCF focused on fundraising efforts last year.
After raising $35,000 at the foundation’s first ever fundraiser in July 2025 and receiving an additional $90,000 from misplaced Walmart stock in the foundation’s name earlier this year, Rainey said the task forces are primed to really make a difference.
“Now having the extra money, it definitely provides more momentum, (and) more excitement among our board, because we have this increased ability to give grants,” Rainey said. “We anticipate giving about $40,000 again this year, and that’s far more than we were giving away five years ago.”
Jan Eastman, executive director for LCF, said the foundation also received a $25,000 Appalachian Regional Commission grant in September to fund additional training for the task forces this year.
More leaders, more projects
The group has taken a two-fold approach to improve its training, Rainey said.
Board members are enrolled in leadership certification programs, and Rita Felton, a previous LCF board member, was hired as project manager to help lead task forces until they take off on their own.
“That’s all about … building our leadership and the capacity of the board members to lead,” Rainey said. “… We’re also doing the work to revamp the task forces and gear up for another round of a community conversation.”
Eastman said the foundation’s hope through this new training is to help the task forces grow beyond the foundation and get back to the kind of impact it had when it first started in 2018.
“So far, we keep having to do the reconvening,” Eastman said. “We keep pushing it, and we’d really like for those task forces to take on sort of a life of their own. … And we know that part of that is just some leadership development and finding the ones that really have a passion.”
Felton said Tuesday’s meeting primarily served to get members thinking about the task forces again and brainstorming issues to address before LCF’s grant deadline of Sept. 1.
“We’d like for them … (to) just keep helping identify the needs (in the community) for us to be able to give grants where they can get the biggest bang for our philanthropic investment back in our communities,” Eastman said. “That’s really what we hope out of this is that we can just have a greater impact with what we’re doing with our grant money.”
The task force groups came up with several ideas, ranging from focusing on how to financially support the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science to addressing food insecurity among airmen on Columbus Air Force Base.
Felton’s hope is that the task forces will not limit discussions to their planned times and will come back to the second meeting in June with clearer ideas of projects they’d like to pursue.
Beginning in April Felton said she will film videos of task force members explaining the importance of their committee and the issues they see as the most important to address going forward.
Those videos, along with others of organization leaders speaking on how they used grants they received from LCF in the past, are just a few of the ways she hopes to boost awareness in the community and get more local nonprofits applying for grants and joining a task force.
“What I would like to see is our community looking at these task forces and going, ‘Wow, I want to be part of that,’” Felton said. “I want to be part of the transformation that’s happening around my community.’”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
