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When we launched Valley News in 2018, our mission was simple: to affirm a sense of community through our publication, sharing news of interest to Grain Valley citizens, and helping each of us learn more about our neighbors. In order to reach as many people as possible, we provided news at no cost to our readers both online weekly and in print on the first and third weeks of the month. The advertisers and sustaining members you see throughout this publication and featured on our website make this possible.
We remain committed to providing free access to fair, comprehensive coverage of issues affecting residents. In studying readership trends and surveys of our readers, the vast majority access stories online. In order to best leverage the resources we have and continue our coverage of local issues, we have decided to discontinue our print publication at the end of the year. As always, all content included in print editions will remain readily available on our website and new content will be posted each Thursday and when breaking news occurs. We appreciate your readership and support and wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season. These last two years have been extremely challenging for everyone. But as we approach the holiday season it seems like things may be returning closer to normal. We all look forward to family and friends gathering once again to celebrate the holiday season.
One thing that has not changed throughout the pandemic has been the generosity of the donors of your Community Foundation. Our fundholders were very generous in 2020. We had a great response from our Donor Advised Fundholders in the spring of 2020 as we kept them apprised of the needs of nonprofits in our community responding to the Covid crisis. They made grants of more than $250,000 to help nonprofits in our community responding to the COVID crisis, during a time that was very scary for all of us if you think back to April, May, and June of 2020. And these Covid response grants did not displace other grants. In fact, last year total grants from our Donor Advised Fundholders totaled nearly $1.8 million, an increase of 21% from 2019. Speaking of things returning closer to normal, your Community Foundation recently had our annual Grants Luncheon at the Midwest Genealogy Center. We had to forego the event in 2020 so it was great to gather with our board members and advisory board members, grants committee volunteers, fundholders, and Youth Advisory Council students, to present grants totaling $427,323 to 61 area nonprofits. We also had representatives from Junior Service League who continued their practice of tying their annual grant making into our community grants process. Endowed grant making funds entrusted to our board to steward provided approximately $330,000 of this total and once again our generous Donor Advised Fund Holders responded when asked to help close the gap between the amount requested by our grantees and available funds. We had 18 fundholders respond with grants over $90,000 to bring the total to $427,000, a new record. Once again, their generosity continues to grow. The Grants Luncheon was sponsored this year by Assel Grant Services and Mid-Continent Public Library, and we are very grateful for their support. At the luncheon we also formerly welcomed 19 new members of our Heartland Legacy Society who joined in 2020 or this year. The society now has more than 170 members who have made plans to make a gift through their estate to a fund at the Community Foundation. Legacy Gifts from members who have passed away provided $291,000 of the grants presented at the luncheon this year through endowed funds created by their generosity. It's clear that our donors clearly recognize that here truly is no greater feeling than giving back to your local community. Their generosity is truly a gift to our entire community. Happy Holidays! Phil Hanson is the president and CEO of Truman Heartland Community Foundation. Truman Heartland Community Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity committed to improving the communities in and around Eastern Jackson County through partnerships with donors and community members. For more information on charitable giving, visit www.thcf.org or call Truman Heartland at 816-836-8189. by Michael Smith The Grain Valley girls swimming and diving team is heading into its fourth season, and just like the boys, it will be small in numbers. The Eagles will compete with a combined 14 swimmers and divers heading into the 2021-22 season. And after having one state qualifier last season, they hope to have more this time around. “We have a smaller team this year, we lost seven seniors from last year’s team,” Grain Valley girls swim coach Kara Liddle said. “That kind of hurt us this year. But with the girls we do have, I think we can have a really good season.” Madison Rogers leads the way for the Eagles as the lone state qualifier from last season. She actually made the Missouri State High School Girls Swimming and Diving Championships twice and as a junior she is hoping to crack the top eight at state this year after finishing 11th a year ago. In the offseason, she has been working on improving with her club diving team called the Titans. “I have been pretty satisfied with my high school career so far,” Rogers said. “Last year was honestly a struggle but I have worked really hard, and I am ready to improve this year.” Since her freshman season Rogers said she has improved mentally the most. “A lot of things I struggled with before I was because I was scared,” she said. “Now I am more focused and that has been the biggest difference. “I definitely need to work on my twisters, and I have also worked on my doubles because that’s what judges focus on the most. I think finishing in the top eight at state is a reasonable goal as long as I keep pushing hard in practice.” Joining Rogers will be two freshmen who will be diving for the first time and senior Lauren White will also be a first-time diver. She swam for Grain Valley during her first three years on the team and will be trying diving out in 2021-22. “She’s a cheerleader, so she has that gymnastics background, and she really seems to be enjoying it,” Liddle said of White. Leading the way for the swimming side of the team are seniors Ella Boyle and Alyssa Hanenkratt. Boyle said she swims every event but the 100-meter backstroke and Hanenkratt swims long-distance races like the 200 and 500-meter freestyle races. Freshman Riley Wade is a sprinter who could make some noise this year, as well. “My goal is to make it to state in any event that I can,” Boyle said. “Our relays were really close to making state last year and we had some girls miss cuts by hundredths of a second.” Liddle said the team will have its first swim meet Wednesday and the regular season will cap with the Suburban White Conference Championships. “I think they are going to do really well in conference,” Liddle said of the seniors. “We are going to have one of the smaller teams in the conference because we don’t have very many people. We have our first meet on Wednesday, so I am excited to see how well we can do.” Grain Valley seniors: Ella Boyle, left and Alyssa Hanenkratt look to lead the Grain Valley girls swimming team for the 2021-2022 season. Photo credit: Michael Smith
by Marcia Napier, Grain Valley Historical Society As I continue to peruse the “Guide to Grain Valley” inserts from the late 1990s, I certainly see a reoccurring theme. The headlines from 25 years ago could be written today --“City expecting continued growth,” “More businesses have come in the last year,” “Police department trains to ward off crime,” Growing district changes Hackett’s duties,” and “New elementary gives district four schools.”
Well, maybe the last one is a bit dated. The last elementary, Stony Point gave Grain Valley seven schools, and most of them are still growing with new additions continuing to increase their physical size and student capacity. But soon we will celebrate 25 years since the opening of Sni-A-Bar Elementary School. When Sni-A-Bar opened (August 1997) it housed Parents as First Teachers, kindergarten and first grade; about 225 students. At that time, the district was divided by grade levels rather than living areas to avoid conflicts over attendance boundary lines. If you are relatively new to our city, you may not realize other ways it has changed. Twenty-five years ago we had a golf course on R.D. Mize Road, an antique mall on Main Street, and the United States Post Office still sorted mail in Grain Valley. As we look toward 2022, you can see that a few businesses have been erased from the landscape, several businesses have come and gone, but many more are here to stay. Twenty-five years ago we had just added Sonic Drive-In and expanded the Valley Ridge Industrial Park. State Bank of Missouri was about to open a new branch on Eagles’ Parkway and OOIDA was working to complete a $3.5 million dollar building that would bring about 50 new jobs to Grain Valley. As we consider the history of Grain Valley, certainly the business community is one indication of how we have changed. But schools, and the education of our young citizens, tell the real history of how we have grown. So as we approach 2022, I hope the school district will celebrate 25 years at Sni-A-Bar, because Yesterday is History! The following information is derived from the Grain Valley Police Department daily calls for service log for the week of November 17-23, 2021.
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