Scandia Community Foundation

Goal: $25,000.00

Specific Need

Empowering Scandia and Its Surrounding Region

The Scandia Community Foundation is an endowment for Scandia, Kansas and its surrounding region. Our current need is to build our endowment to supply all or part of the local capital match required to secure one (or more) Community Development Block Grant applications within the next five years.

Mission

A New Tool in a New Era

The Scandia Community Foundation supports infrastructure, economy, society, and leisure within and around Scandia by connecting the expertise and resources of its community and diaspora.

Profile

Defining the New Scandinavian

The town of Scandia was established along the Republican River in 1868 by eleven members of the Scandinavian Agricultural Society of Chicago and has been the happy home of their families, friends, neighbors, business associates, and descendants ever since. It has also been a place of vibrant social and structural change. Our forebears called themselves "New Scandinavians" in the face of similar forces, ultimately escaping famine and fire to establish a distinctly American way of living inside one of the greatest steppe environments on Earth. We envision ourselves "New Scandinavians" still, facing challenge and recreating this American life every day. Not as ethnic transplants, but as native fruits and outgrowths of that first creative association. The contrast between the place from whence we came and the place where we are perhaps could not be more different. Yet, we are free. We live the difference! What do we want? What do we need? We support and help to create the answers.

Contact any one of our Foundation leaders; we're planning a series of strategic doings this spring and summer to discuss community aspirations.

Diane Larson-Floersch
Jessica Housholder
Mark Melby
Rana Cline
Edward Larson

IMPORTANT NOTE: We are pleased to announce the successful completion of a state survey this March 2026, which qualifies the City of Scandia for an LMI (Low-to-Middle Income) community designation. This designation is strategic, not pejorative. It allows the City to participate in the State's Community Development Block Grant program, and reduces the amount of local capital required to match an award. This is a brand-new tool in the City's toolbox and we are so excited to have cooperated with the City to lower the barriers to reinvestment, revitalization, and renewal.