CLUB SPONSORED FOUNDATIONS
Our club has founded three very important non-profit foundations. The first two are specific and specifically serve youth. The third serves broad, general charitable purposes
Cottage Home Foundation
The Cottage Home Foundation was established in 1969. It supports the “Cottage Home,” a home maintained to provide housing for foster children, particularly a place where siblings who have lost their parents can be kept together in a single family environment. It is the only foster care home in the United States founded and supported by a local Lions Club. The Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit and members and others can make tax deductible contributions or grants as permitted under applicable law
Fred W. Smith Scholarship Foundation
For over 40 years the Fred W. Smith Scholarship Foundation has granted scholarships to worthy students in the community who wish to pursue a college degree. Recipients are encouraged but not required to repay the scholarship funds they receive so that the Foundation can continue to assist other or more students in the future. The Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit and members and others can make tax deductible contributions or grants as permitted under applicable law.
Ventura Downtown Lions Club Charitable Foundation (VDLCCF)
The VDLCCF is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit public benefit corporation formed under California law in 2011. It was formed to provide a generic foundation to which members and others could make tax deductible contributions or grants as permitted under applicable law, both during their lives and through bequests, to further general charitable, eleemosynary purposes of the broad type that we as Lions might support – i.e., all types of community and other programs and activities that promote or enhance the community, assist youth, help prevent blindness and so on. The specific charitable grants and donations made by the Foundation are determined in the discretion of its seven member Board of Directors.