The Keweenaw Community Foundation gathered supporters, staff, youth advisory council members, partners and board members Wednesday to celebrate its work in 2026. Foundation CEO Robin Meneguzzo said the event, Keweenaw Gives, does more than raise money. It lifts the spirits of the community foundation’s supporters.
Meneguzzo said the foundation serves as a conduit for community ideas. “It’s hard to sum up what a community does,” Meneguzzo said. “What we are is really a conduit to help get the word out.” She pointed to the Keweenaw Heartlands project, which reached several major milestones this year.
Over four years, the foundation helped The Nature Conservancy guide the community through the process of establishing the working-recreation public forest. The work also prepared residents to select a five-member Natural Resources and Recreation Authority board.
Meneguzzo said the effort reached beyond land management. “Someone else made the comment that this was really democracy in action. Those are the types of comments that matter to me. We’re creating these opportunities in places where the community can drive its future,” she said.
Child care remained a major focus in 2026. The foundation helped create the Great Start Collaborative’s Start Small program and supports the Keweenaw Breastfeeding Collaborative. Both programs grew out of collaboration with similarly concerned organizations such as Treehouse Family Resources. Start Small is also a collaborative effort with KEDA. The foundation also helped to launch RxKids this spring to deliver financial support to families in the western Upper Peninsula.
Meneguzzo said a new child care center in Hancock, with 46 slots, opened this year and plans to expand into Calumet. “We’re excited that she was able to open a 46-slot center in Hancock, but she’s looking to expand,” Meneguzzo said. “We’re thinking about what the next generation looks like and making sure these students have skills, leadership and opportunities to learn about this place and, hopefully, come home and stay here.”
The foundation also works with young people through its Youth Advisory Council, which gives students a way to influence the changes they want to see in the Copper Country.
Vienna Leonarduzzi, director of development and communications for the foundation, said the organization has expanded its staff and added services. “We have new staff members so that we can do more in the community,” Leonarduzzi said. “We also have a new offering called The Current, which provides nonprofit one-on-one support.”
She added that the foundation will award $100,000 this fall through its competitive field of interest grant program.
The community can learn more about the foundation’s accomplishments at Keweenaw Gives. The foundation also supports initiatives such as the Big Annie statue project. It has begun working more closely with nonprofit leaders and volunteers to teach skills needed to access grant programs through The Current.
Learn more about the Keweenaw Community Foundation online.
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