By ADAM STEWART

Staff writer

Hillsboro Community Foundation has received a grant from the Kansas Health Foundation and an estate gift from Marga Ebel, continuing the foundation’s growth.

The grant from the Kansas Health Foundation, $300,000, is a matching grant; so the foundation must raise other funds — about $400,000 — to receive the full amount of the grant, Keith Harder said. He is chairman of Hillsboro Community Foundation’s board of directors.

The amount of Ebel’s estate gift isn’t yet determined, but Harder said it is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“We anticipate within several years we’ll have a million dollars in the foundation,” Harder said. “We think this will really make an infusion of vitality into the community.”

Hillsboro Community Foundation supports programs in Hillsboro, Durham, and Lehigh. It also supports area programs that serve those communities.

One of the foundation’s projects is Hillsboro Area Impact Fund, which makes grants to local programs. In its first three years, the fund granted about $21,000 to organizations such as Hillsboro Senior Center, Main Street Ministries, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Marion County, Families and Communities Together, and Hillsboro Chess Guild.

Grants are made with the investment earnings of the approximately $200,000 in the fund, Harder said.

“I think this year we will have about $10,000 for grants,” he said.

Grant amounts range from $500 to $2,500. Grant recipients will probably be announced in December. The application deadline has already passed.

“There’s always more (requests) than what money we have to give away,” Harder said.