Jennings & Rebecca Jones Foundation Gives Over $300,000 to Local Non-Profits

Dec 11, 2012 at 10:50 am by bryan


The Jennings & Rebecca Jones Foundation is pleased to announce the final recipients of its 2012 grants.  MTSU’s MTeach, the Family Guidance Center, Greenhouse Ministries, and support for a community needs assessment are all new projects for the Jones Foundation.  Continuing support was granted for an expansion of reading clinics at Murfreesboro City Schools, materials to support a prior grant for literacy programming at the Boys & Girls Club, and investment in the Chair of Excellence in Urban and Regional Planning at MTSU.  In total this year, the Jennings & Rebecca Jones Foundation granted $307,000 to educational endeavors in Rutherford County.  Earlier in the year grants were made to Discovery Center, Special Kids, The Murfreesboro Youth Orchestra, Read To Succeed, MTSU, Murfreesboro City and Rutherford County Schools.

For over 25 years the Jennings & Rebecca Jones Foundation has supported educational endeavors in Rutherford County.  This year these organizations have been chosen to continue the Foundation work. 

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Jennings H. Jones, the grandson of Foundation founder Jennings A. Jones, has been attending Foundation Board meetings for a year now and is soon to join the Board as a voting member.  He is very pleased to be involved in the process.  “We recognize programs based on their ability to improve the foundation on which our children grow.  I am honored to be a part of my grandfather’s legacy.”

Caresa Brooks, the Coordinator of the Murfreesboro City School Reading clinic is proud of the accomplishments gained by the students at the original site, funded by the Jones Foundation at Mitchell-Nelson.  At the new site, funded this month, “at-risk students, in grades 3-6, will be offered tutoring after school. Students will receive reading instruction 4 days a week for 12 weeks,” says Brooks.  This type of concentrated support by professional teachers has been shown to more quickly bring readers closer, or up to, to their grade-level.

Director of the Tennessee STEM Education Center at MTSU, Tom Cheatham says the Jones Foundation funding “will allow us to recruit additional STEM majors into high school math and science teaching, as well as recruit and train excellent mentor teachers to help these potential future teachers develop as teachers.  It will also help fund a group of future teachers to attend the national UTeach conference in Austin Texas and have them present their experiences to the cadre of future teachers back home.  These funds will make a difference in the lives of many future high school math and science teachers.”

Jennings & Rebecca Jones Foundation executive director, Ronni Shaw, is very pleased with this crop of grant recipients.   “It’s been a great pleasure this year working with Jones grantees and developing new educational investments for the Jones Foundation Board,” says Shaw.  “The energy for and commitment to education in Rutherford County is a real testament to our future.  We have already started plans for next year’s giving which will continue supporting a range of programs and new projects for Rutherford County.”

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