January 4, 2023 | By Muddy River News
QUINCY — Twenty-three local nonprofit organizations recently received grants in Samantha Otte’s memory that will benefit hundreds of area youths for artistic, leadership and humanitarian efforts.
The grants, totaling nearly $40,000, were distributed from the Samantha Otte Youth Opportunity Fund with the Community Foundation Serving West Central Illinois and Northeast Missouri at the Oakley-Lindsay Center in the presence of her family and friends. Since the fund was established in late 2000, more than $523,000 has been distributed through grants to support kids in Samantha’s memory.
In a press release, June Otte, Samantha’s mother, said, “It is incredibly exciting and heart-warming to celebrate this significant milestone. No one could possibly have envisioned that one day we would be celebrating more than a half-million dollars of grants awarded to nonprofits enriching the lives of tens of thousands of area children.”
The Samantha Otte Youth Opportunity Fund honors the life and legacy of Samantha Otte by helping area children reach their full potential. Samantha died in March 2000 at age 10 after a liver transplant necessitated by cystic fibrosis. Samantha’s parents, Chuck and June Otte, then decided to start a fund in their daughter’s memory at the Community Foundation. The Samantha Otte Youth Opportunity Fund was the foundation’s first donor-advised fund.
“One of the primary reasons this milestone has been reached is because of the outstanding stewardship of the Community Foundation,” said Otte. “We are grateful for the dedicated, hard-working professionals at the Community Foundation who have guided the Sammy Fund group over these past 23 years. They have advised us well, invested our donations wisely and have worked tirelessly to maximize the impact our fund has for area children.”
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