Weaver receives award

Rob Weaver was honored Wednesday with the Jack Cole Award for Volunteerism at the annual meeting of The Portland Foundation.
Weaver, owner of WPGW and retired executive director of John Jay Center for Learning, has been deeply involved in United Way of Jay County, Arts Place, the Portland Lions Club, Portland Rotary Club, and the Jay County Fair Board.
He was recently inducted into the Indiana Association of County Fairs Hall of Fame in recognition of his 30 years on the fair board. Weaver also led the fundraising effort to purchase new uniforms for the Jay County Marching Patriots. He is currently president of the Jay County Visitor and Tourism Board.
“What an honor,” said Weaver, who was injured in a recent fall and is currently confined to a wheelchair. “You folks know I love my community.”
The award, named in honor of the foundation’s first full-time executive director, provides $250 to be donated to the recipient’s choice of local causes. “It’s going to stay right here at John Jay Center,” Weaver said of the donation.
Foundation executive director Doug Inman reported that as of the end of 2010 foundation assets in 279 different component funds totaled $19 million. As of today, the total is more than $20 million.
The foundation was established in December 1951 with a $1,000 endowment created by the Jay Garment Company in memory of Orville Easterday and a $1,000 scholarship endowment created by the Haynes Milling Company in honor of Edward M. Haynes.
Since that time, Inman said, the foundation has awarded more than $11 million in grants to local organizations and scholarships to local students. More than 2,000 Jay County students have been recipients of scholarships from the foundation.
Inman noted that the foundation’s board of trustees had recently set a goal of having a total endowment of $35 million by 2021 and suggested that “birthday gifts” be made to the foundation in recognition of its 60th year.[[In-content Ad]]