Couple gives $750,000 to three Cedar Rapids nonprofits

CEDAR RAPIDS - A couple with ties to Cedar Rapids is donating $750,000 to benefit three nonprofit organizations.

The gift, from Nan Parks Kocourek and Wayne Kocourek, will be equally divided - $250,000 each - among the Boys and Girls Clubs of Cedar Rapids, Tanager Place and Waypoint, according to a news release sent Monday by the three organizations.

'We have the ability to help where help is needed,” Wayne Kocourek, who lives in the Chicago area, said by phone Monday. 'My wife spent many years in Cedar Rapids. She has a real passion for these organizations and the work they do.”

According to the news release, Nan Parks Kocourek lived in Cedar Rapids for 35 years and 'feels a great love for the community. She is grateful for it remaining a wonderful home for her children and 12 grandchildren.”

Nan's children and their spouses, who together include Lura and Ryan McBride, Trevor and Jocelyn Parks, Hunter and Andrea Parks, and Clayton and Kim Parks, are active contributors to the service agencies who will benefit from the donations, said Wayne Kocourek, chairman and chief executive officer of MidOaks Investment, based in Buffalo Grove, Ill. Wayne and Nan Kocourek were married in 2014.

Officials from all three agencies said they are honored to receive the donation.

'They mentioned something a while back about making a donation, but they didn't say how much,” said Sarah Hoeger, marketing director for the Boys and Girls Clubs. 'The amount was a surprise.”

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Cedar Rapids plans to use the gift as a match for the annual Great Futures Campaign, which provides free yearly memberships to club members who cannot afford to participate. Some of the funds are to be put into an investment account to establish the Nan and Wayne Kocourek Scholarship.

'We really looked at where our greatest needs are,” Hoeger said. 'Eighty percent of our kids are on scholarship.”

The donation also will help establish a Boys and Girls Club at Southeast Junior High in Iowa City on Jan. 19. The club will start with 30 kids, eventually serving 100 children there, Hoeger said.

Tanager Place is going to use the gift to support its capital campaign. With the need for childhood mental health services on the rise, the newly located Behavior Health Clinic, 1030 Fifth Ave. SE, allows Tanager Place to double the number of children it serves. This clinic has the region's only comprehensive Autism Spectrum Disorder services offering assessment, diagnosis and treatment in one building.

Waypoint plans to use a portion of the gift to establish a scholarship fund to provide low income families with financial support so they have access to quality child care. In addition, Waypoint plans to construct a new playground at its KidsPoint Downtown Learning Center and Preschool. The remaining funds are to be placed in the Waypoint Endowment Fund.

Corinne Ramler, spokeswoman for the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, said the Kocoureks' donation is one of the largest single gifts in Cedar Rapids this year.

'This is a significant gift in our community,” she said, adding that last year the foundation received three donations of $750,000 or more out of more than 1,500 gifts. 'Gifts of that size are usually estate gifts, so it's unusual that the donors are living.”

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