In 1991 you might have been driving your Honda Accord to the mall to pick up a copy of Katharine Hepburns’s Me: Stories of My Life and then to catch a matinee of Silence of the Lambs. Or maybe you were in your bedroom making a mix tape of Boyz II Men, M.C. Hammer and Pearl Jam while your family watched Home Improvement on TV.

Gas was just $.73/gallon. The price of a postage stamp went from $.25 to $.29. A VCR (Remember those?!) could set you back $399. Sales of salsa overtook ketchup for the first time. After George H.W. Bush admitted, “I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m the President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli,” sales of the cruciferous veggie may have tanked, too.

Closer to home, a seed of opportunity was planted. Three Rush County friends, Rick Levi, Paul Barada, and Danny Earnest, accepted Lilly Endowment Inc.’s first Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow (GIFT) matching funds challenge to create a community foundation in each Hoosier county.

The Rush County Community Foundation (RCCF) was formed on May 21, 1991 with $85,000.

Thirty years later, RCCF’s generous donors have helped grow our assets in excess of $20 million to support Rush County in perpetuity. More than $7 million have been distributed to provide annual support to local organizations, scholarships to students pursuing secondary education and grants to fund nonprofit projects and programs for the benefit of our community.

Definitely a cause for celebration.

Have you noticed how birthdays have turned into birth months? With busy schedules it seems like this is now the norm. And the pandemic has made planning a bit more challenging.

So, we’ll begin our 30th birthday party with a virtual scavenger hunt of ten RCCF funded projects. You can even win REAL prizes! Each day from May 12th-21st we’ll post a photo and clue to the location on our social media accounts. Feel free to discuss your answers and help each other out. Then visit rushcountyfoundation.org/30 to submit your answers. All correct entries will be entered into a drawing on May 31 for one of three $30 gift cards to a local business. (If there aren’t three correct entries, all will be placed into the drawing.)

Then save July 8 for a celebration at Caldwell Acres with food and fun for everyone. Look for details soon.

Each gift made to RCCF’s endowed funds is an investment in the Rush County community forever. There isn’t a better way to live life local, and we are eternally grateful to our donors!