On behalf of all of us at the Orange County Community Foundation, I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season. OCCF awarded $21.3 million in grants and scholarships this fiscal year, making 2009 the highest granting year in OCCF history. This record-setting response to the needs of our local community was made possible by the generosity of you: our friends and partners around the county. Please click here for a special holiday greeting from OCCF.

Please join me in welcoming Anoosheh M. Oskouian to the Orange County Community Foundation’s Board of Governors. We are thrilled to add to our board such a distinguished environmental entrepreneur who has reached out to make a difference in Southern California and beyond.

Anoosheh is the president and co-founder of Ship & Shore Environmental, Inc., an engineering and manufacturing company that provides customized green energy industrial solutions. Anoosheh serves on the boards of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which works to protect the health of residents in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Passionate about improving the lives of children, Anoosheh is a co-founder of Children’s Hope International Literacy & Development (CHILD), established in 2004. The agency provides needy children in a variety of countries with nutritional, medical, and educational staples so that they may continue attending school, enhancing their lives now and into the future. Visit CHILD’s web site for more information.

The Orange County Community Foundation board and staff is delighted to welcome Anoosheh to OCCF. We know her environmental expertise and widespread community work will be great assets to our mission of encouraging, supporting, and facilitating philanthropy in Orange County.

To learn more about Anoosheh M. Oskouian, view the press release here. 

November was a busy and exciting month for the Orange County Community Foundation! This fall marks the Foundation’s 20th year of encouraging, supporting and facilitating philanthropy in Orange County. We celebrated this milestone in many special ways: A beautiful Annual Report chronicling OCCF’s 20-year journey with images of some of the most breathtaking scenes in our county; a 20th Anniversary video featuring local philanthropic and nonprofit leaders, their reflections on OCCF’s history, and their hopes for its future; and our best-attended Annual Meeting to date!

One of the personal highlights of the Annual Meeting was presenting Orange County Community Foundation founder and executive director emeritus, Judy Swayne, with the 2009 Excellence in Philanthropy Lifetime Achievement Award in front of over 350 guests. If it weren’t for Judy’s vision and unwavering passion for philanthropy, the Foundation would never have come to life 20 years ago and become what it is today. Judy and her husband Keith announced at the meeting a $500,000 challenge grant contribution to the Orange County Endowment to establish permanent endowments in support of the Environment and the Arts. The board, staff, and donors of the Orange County Community Foundation and I, as well as all of our nonprofit and community friends, are grateful to Judy and Keith for leaving a legacy that will endure in Orange County forever.

To browse an electronic version of OCCF’s 2009 Annual Report, click here. To view part one of OCCF’s 20th Anniversary video “A Legacy of Leadership”, click here. The view part two “Making an Impact”, click here. To view photos from the Annual Meeting, visit OCCF’s Facebook Fan Page here.

Visit the Orange County Community Foundation web site at www.oc-cf.org.