Bonnie Gettys, President & CEO of the Barry Community Foundation, has led this rural foundation for the past 25 years. The Foundation has grown over 100 times, from $350,000 to $50,000,000.00. During her tenure, the foundation adopted the HomeTown Competitive model from Nebraska for action and the Healthy Community model of community strategy.

With both models working in tandem, the foundation settled on two core items: Community Assets and Access to basic needs. In 2011, the foundation began a conversation with donors led to a Program Related Investment fund to support the health of the local economy in order to increase sustainable wage jobs, entrepreneurs, tourism and municipality partnerships. In 2016, the foundation then created KickStart to Career – a county-wide children’s education savings account.