Q&A: St. Louis Cares to host charity event

Sam Duncan is the director of development of the Southeast Missouri University Foundation. He has been involved with St. Louis Cares since the fall of 2010. St. Louis Cares, which is made up of Southeast alumni, is having a charity event called "DIANA, The People's Princess" on Feb. 23. Proceeds from the event will help St. Louis area foster children attend Southeast.

What is St. Louis Cares?

Duncan: St. Louis Cares began with a small group of alumni from St. Louis who really wanted to give back to the students of St. Louis who are looking at going to college. They were thinking about what they could do to really make a difference and have a great impact on the neediest group, the most well-defined group, of students in the St. Louis area. This group of alumni grew into a group of 12 ... all of them St. Louis-area alumni.

What is St. Louis Cares' mission?

Duncan: There were a couple of folks that were associated with a group called Angels' Arms. We started meeting with Angels' Arms. This group [St. Louis Cares] decided that we should partner up.

So as a result, the mission of this group, while it was always to help individuals with a well-defined financial need come to Cape and have the same experience that we had as alumni, ... Angels' Arms became our first priority under that mission. There's a broad mission of helping students in St. Louis with a well-defined financial need to bring alumni together who wish to help, not just financially, but help in any way [to] support students in the St. Louis area come here.

How did you bring "DIANA, the People's Princess" to St. Louis?

Duncan: Gary Zide is one of our members. Gary founded the St. Louis Home & Garden Show. As founder, he's always done something special to bring in a different type of person who hasn't attended before. Gary saw great value in trying to figure out a way to help St. Louis Cares from his work in bringing "DIANA, the People's Princess," to this year's exhibit. Gary went out by himself and found this exhibit, and Gary brought it to St. Louis.

This exhibit became his interest because he really wanted to bring something special. We sat down one day and he said, "Sam, I've got this coming in and I wonder what we should do with it. I wonder if there's a way if we could help our endowment and maybe bring in more people to the home show than before."

What we sought was a win-win situation. We want the Home Builders Association to benefit from this by having some different people attend. We want Angels' Arms to benefit because we want to help the kids in the Angels' Arms foster care system to find their way to a four-year residential university.

What is Angels' Arms mission?

Duncan: It was started by a lady named Bess Wilfong. Bess became interested in adopting a foster child some time ago. When she did this, she learned some things about foster care and foster children and decided that she really would like to keep siblings together. It became her mission in life to arrange for siblings in foster care to be taken care of and to stay with their siblings. Over the last 10 years, they have worked with St. Louis-area philanthropists and business owners and other entities to establish seven foster homes in which many young boys and girls could move in and not be separated from their brothers and sisters.

Who are some of your partners for the event?

Duncan: The Home Builders Association of St Louis, Angels' Arms and Ladue News in conjunction with the Southeast Missouri University Foundation; which the foundation is really the anchor of the group. The foundation always seeks to help students through scholarships.

What are St. Louis Cares' financial goals?

Duncan: The first objective is to endow a scholarship at $10,000. However, if you ask the members of St. Louis Cares what their overall objective is, in some fashion, to help students with defined financial needs by having a $1,000,000 endowment. A $1,000,000 endowment would provide approximately $50,000 a year for St. Louis-area students.