Missoula Community Foundation welcomes Marcy Allen as Interim Executive Director. Allen assumed the post March 4, 2019. 

Allen brings with her nonprofit management experience, fundraising skills, solid community relationships, and a deep knowledge of the Missoula community. She has lived here, with a brief hiatus, for more than 20 years. Most recently, Allen ran a consulting business where she worked with companies and nonprofits to help identify their needs and assets, and then to align those to drive growth. Prior to this work, she was the Executive Director of BREDD for nine years. During her tenure at BREDD, a three-county economic development district serving Missoula, Mineral, and Ravalli counties, she brought in millions of dollars for area businesses to promote job growth and implement regional planning.

"Working in economic development you have an acute awareness of the needs of the community. I am excited to put that to work at Missoula Community Foundation. I love connecting people and organizations to resources that help them achieve their goals, personal or business. Missoula Community Foundation is a savings account for Missoula's future needs. We help donors connect to causes they want to give to and help nonprofits build capacity to fulfill their missions. I am so honored to be in this role in a community that I love," Allen said.

Cindy Waltz, chair of Missoula Community Foundation board of directors, said "We are thrilled to have Marcy as our new executive director. We love her proactive approach and contagious energy. She is a strategic thinker and a natural connector. In the coming year we plan to take an in-depth look at the work we are doing and decide how we can best move forward to support the community now and into the future. We are excited to have Marcy lead the way."

Join us in welcoming Marcy to the community foundation world here in Montana!

Wayne Edsall, 89, died at home in Bozeman on February 8, 2019. He and his wife Marcia, who preceded him in death, were generous donors to MCF.

Wayne was born in Bozeman on March 22, 1929, the son of Ollie and Martha Edsall. He grew up in Bozeman, Missoula, Billings, and Everett, Washington. After graduating from Gallatin County High School in 1947 he enlisted in the Navy and served four years in the SeaBees in Guam and at the Nuclear Test Site in Nevada, witnessing 13 nuclear blasts, during which he said he could see the bones in his hands when the blast went off. In 1952 he won a personal commendation from the Director of the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory for the work he performed at the test site.

While in the Navy, he married Marcia Manley. After being discharged they moved to Anchorage, Alaska where he worked on the construction of the hospital on the Elmendorf Air Force Base. In 1955 they returned to Bozeman where Wayne worked for Haggerty Messmer before starting Edsall Construction Company in 1959. He began by building spec homes, and by the time he retired in 1994 he had worked in all of the western United States, winning the U.S. Small Business Administration Award for Excellence in 1990, and winning awards for his work on the Waste Water Treatment Plant in Bozeman, the remodeling of the Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone National Park, and the Laundry Facility in Zion National Park, among others. Perhaps the commendation he was most proud of was from the U.S. Department of the Interior for the reconstruction of Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site on the border of Montana and North Dakota in 1987.

He was active in the community. He was elected to the Bozeman School Board in 1968 and in 1977 he joined the board of the First Security Bank on which he served for 29 years.

In his early years, he was a stock car racing enthusiast, part of a team of friends who built and drove a Ford Coupe with the number 41T, painted pink and nicknamed "Flower Power," appearing every Sunday in the summers at the Three Forks and Belgrade Speedways, often winning the annual Championship Race.

But his true passion was always aviation. In the course of his life, he rebuilt and flew 13 antique airplanes, including his beloved 1932 Fleet Model 9 biplane, the only one left flying in the world. To honor the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII he flew his restored BT-13 training plane from Phoenix to Washington, D.C. circling around the Statue of Liberty in New York City. He also had an instrument license and flew a Cessna 185, a twin-engine Cessna 340 and an aerobatic Citabaria among many others.

In 2000 he suffered a severe stroke and worked to recover from it with the goal to fly again. He achieved that goal and the following summer flew his last long-range flight up the Yukon to the Arctic Circle. He continued to fly, making his last flight through the Gallatin Valley on September 29, 2017.

"Of all that Dad gave us--and his generosity is legend--his values are the most enduring treasure. When I think about the values Dad lived by, they include Passion, Justice, Generosity, Compassion, and unconditional love for family," said Susan Edsall, Wayne's daughter. 

Wayne and Marcia established several funds with MCF, which ultimately merged and became the Marcia Edsall Scholarship Fund . The scholarship has awarded $48,000 since 2010 to women in Gallatin County who are juniors or seniors in college with a financial need. The advisory committee is composed of P.E.O. members from the Bozeman chapter where Marcia was an active volunteer for many years.

Both Wayne and Marcia were generous with far more than just their money. We were honored to work with both of them over the years and we sincerely thank them and honor them for their legacy of kindness, compassion, and generosity.

The Montana Learning Center is a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) focused summer camp for children. In the 1980's two leading science teachers from Montana began taking students on field explorations in Montana. Little could they know that their legacy would extend decades into the future. The Montana Learning Center was founded by two award-winning Helena science teachers, Gil and Marilyn Alexander. They realized the country's need for mathematicians, scientists and engineers and knew the importance to teach problem solving and environmental stewardship.

The efforts of the Alexanders, called the Montana Science Institute, became the Montana Learning Center at Canyon Ferry Lake, in 2004. Our students have won amazing acclaim. High school students' accomplishments include national first place winners in the Westinghouse National Science Talent Search, the Intermountain Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, USA Today All American Academic Team, the International Science Fair, as well as numerous regional, state and local awards.

Montana Learning Center offers children the chance to learn, grow, and explore new modes of thinking and doing. STEAM camp not only boosts academic performance during the school year, it also builds confidence, creativity, resiliency, and is lots of fun.

One of the most exciting new developments at the Montana Learning Center is that it was chosen as one of 14 institutions nationwide as regional hubs for Apollo 50 ^th Next Giant Leap Student Challenge, a competition for middle school and high school students. The aeronautics, engineering and robotics competition is hosted by NASA and the Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pipeline, a collaborative K-12 education effort based at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The competition recreates the challenges that faced the Apollo 11 moon landing. Each team will need to create a replica of the Apollo Lunar Module that will be landed with a remote controlled drone on a map of the lunar surface. The student challenge manual is available online here and details the challenge and equipment to be used.

Registration for the 25 middle school teams and 25 high school teams closes March 30. According to the competition manual, teams are required to be affiliated with an organization such as a school, library, museum, after-school program or club. Registration and regional hub information can also be found online  here. The Montana Learning Center will give preference to teams from Montana, although teams from other states will be accepted if Montana teams do not fill all of the openings.

"NASA's Apollo Next Giant Leap Student Challenge is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for Montana students with a focus on aeronautics, robotics, and programming," Hannahoe said. "This program offers Montana students a rare and exciting opportunity to participate in a NASA program that allows them to use the latest technologies to explore, inspire, create and achieve."

Please support the Montana Learning Center's important mission and work forever by giving to their endowment.