Beginnings: Founded in 2005 in Quincy, Illinois, the Gene Grawe Fund, Inc. is a non-profit charity started by JoAnn (Grawe) Witte to honor her father, the late Eugene "Gene" Grawe. He was a longtime officer with the Western Catholic Union who died in 2003 after a 17 year battle with Parkinson’s Disease. From its humble beginnings in 2005, the Gene Grawe Fund, Inc. has grown into a well-respected, local charity that has awarded over $2.9 million in Catholic school tuition assistance during its lifetime.
Gene and MaryAnn Grawe were married in 1949 and raised 11 children into adulthood. MaryAnn worked hard her whole life alongside Gene from raising children to gardening to supporting her church and community. When the idea was born to honor her late husband by starting the Gene Grawe Fund, she was immediately onboard and in her own quiet way became a behind the scenes advisor and an inspiration to JoAnn. She was such a strong and passionate supporter of the Gene Grawe Fund that after she passed away in 2014, JoAnn considered renaming the Fund in a way that would honor both MaryAnn and Gene. But, in the end, JoAnn knew Mom would not have wanted that. So the name remains the Gene Grawe Fund, Inc.
Motivation: In Ephesians 2:10 it says, “It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we should spend these lives in helping others.” JoAnn tries to live by those words explaining, "Dad spent his life living the example of helping others and now I receive great satisfaction in doing the same. When we serve others, we are serving God, and my dad was a great example to me. I am proud and honored to be carrying on his legacy."
The Gene Grawe Fund's simple mission is to help families pay for a Catholic education for their children. And their simple motto, “Serving God by helping each other”, extols the true meaning of Ephesians 2:10. In practice, the Gene Grawe Fund serves God by helping ensure today's children of limited means can complete all 13 years of school in the Quincy Catholic education system.
How It's Done: The Gene Grawe Fund raises money primarily through the sale of gift cards purchased from local, national, and online businesses who offer rebates back to the Fund ranging from 2 to 20 percent. The gift cards are sold to supporters at the card's face value and the amount rebated by the business stays in the Fund to become part of the tuition assistance monies awarded to students whose families are actively participating in the Gene Grawe Fund. Gift card purchasers get what they pay for. There is no additional cost to them whatsoever.
Through the Gene Grawe Fund office and through an affiliated website, RaiseRight.com, and RaiseRight, a mobile device app, the Gene Grawe Fund sells gift cards from over 800 local, national, and online merchants representing nearly the entire spectrum of consumer goods and services and even some commercial goods and services. Everything from gas to groceries, from dining in to dining out, from putting a shirt on your back to giving said shirt to the IRS, plus furniture, appliances, electronics, entertainment, florists, hunting, fishing, sports, powersports, home remodeling and repair, heating, air conditioning, ventilation, geo-thermal, plumbing, electrical, septic, excavating, gravel hauling, air travel, hotels, car care, pet care, long-term care, cemetery monuments, farm & business supplies, fine jewelry, spa treatments, party planning & supplies, medical, dental, vision, prescriptions, accounting services, tax prep, legal services, and now even steel construction all can be paid for with gift cards from the Gene Grawe Fund.
Growth: In 2005, the Gene Grawe Fund began assisting the families of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in paying for their children's Catholic education at the now closed St. Anthony's School. Then in 2008, the Gene Grawe Fund expanded city-wide to provide assistance to all families, Catholic or otherwise, sending their children to any of the five Catholic elementary and secondary schools in Quincy, Illinois.
During its first ten years, the Gene Grawe Fund operated through a network of contacts and volunteers that eventually spread throughout all the Catholic parishes and schools in the Quincy area. It was a model that allowed the Gene Grawe Fund to grow throughout the city, but made it increasingly difficult to manage. Something had to change to ensure its long-term health and create future growth.
So, in February 2015, the Gene Grawe Fund was finally centralized into a small office adjoining the lobby of the Church of St. Peter at 2600 Maine Street in the very heart of Quincy. Centralizing the Gene Grawe Fund, both organizationally and geographically, proved to be the right move. Because once it became centralized in one, very convenient location, the growth of the Gene Grawe Fund has been nothing short of explosive.
In the Spring of 2018, the Gene Grawe Fund unveiled its first website, www.GeneGraweFund.org. The website and its emailed newsletters have grown significantly in its first few years and is now the main avenue for the Gene Grawe Fund to quickly disseminate information to its members. This became vitally important during the COVID-19 pandemic while the Gene Grawe Fund office was shuttered for 72 days. Several times each month, the Gene Grawe Fund emails it newsletters to over 1,800 email addresses of people who have specifically signed up to receive them.
In April 2020, the Gene Grawe Fund began allowing gift card purchasers to designate one of the five Quincy Catholic schools to receive the rebate funds from their gift card purchases. Anyone can do this with purchases in the Gene Grawe Fund office or on RaiseRight.com. However, it was specifically created to allow longtime Gene Grawe Fund supporters, who no longer have a child, grandchild, niece, or nephew in one of the Quincy Catholic schools, to continue to participate and support Quincy's Catholic education. When the schools receive their undesignated award funds, they will be free to spend it in the best way they see fit.
2023 seen Gene Grawe Fund's first logo.In January 2023, the Gene Grawe Fund announced its first logo in the nearly two decades of its existence. The basic concept of the logo is drawn from the name Gene Grawe where two uppercase Gs face each other and form a Christian cross in the center. The letters GENE GRAWE FUND curve just inside the upper cicumference and the Fund's simple motto “Serving God by helping each other” curves just inside the lower circumference. Est. 2005, the year the Gene Grawe Fund was established, is down the lower left side of the cross. The space directly above the cross can be left blank or, if needed, filled with various phrases such as PROUD SUPPORTER, MERCHANT, MEMBER, etc. The logo is mono-colored with orange initially being chosen to match the theme color of the Gene Grawe Fund website. Any color can be used based on its application. The first use of the new logo was to print it on 6" x 6" vinyl stickers that supporters can affix to their vehicle windows or bumpers.
At the end of its first year of gift card sales, the Gene Grawe Fund was able to award a modest $8,750 in tuition assistance to the students of St. Anthony's School. That figure has risen more than 36 fold to an eye-popping $320,065 in tuition assistance that was awarded to 426 families for the 2022-23 School Year. School Year 2019-20 saw the first elementary school student's $2,700 tuition completely covered. Then, incredibly, just one year later in School Year 2020-21, the first Quincy Notre Dame High School student's full $5,875 tuition was completely covered. And for School Year 2021-22, we will be completely covering two full QND tuitions and three elementary school tuitions. We expect more of the same in the years to come.
Since its beginning in 2005, over $2.9 million in much-needed tuition assistance has been awarded by the Gene Grawe Fund to help Quincy families pay for their children's Catholic education, clearly demonstrating Quincy's strong and growing support for one of its own, home-grown charities! No one knows for sure, but it is estimated that there are well over 1,000 families in the Quincy area that are ever-vigilant in aligning their monthly spending and bill paying with Gene Grawe Fund affiliated merchants and professionals.
Thank You: The families and students who benefit from the Gene Grawe Fund wish to thank all of you who have supported this Fund and continue to support it in any way. Many of you have altered your personal and business spending habits and some even sell cards to co-workers, families, and friends to help make this Fund grow. Thanks also to all of our 30 volunteers who put in long hours just to benefit our students! And finally, thank you to all who continue to support this Fund even though you no longer have students in school. You are the key to our future growth. May God Bless each of you.
Ways to Give: Support for the Gene Grawe Fund is normally achieved through the purchase and use of its gift cards. However, the Gene Grawe Fund, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that can accept monetary gifts from any source such as religious, youth, and community organizations; bequests from estates; funeral memorials; and even donations from private individuals.
Cash or check donations can be dropped off at the Gene Grawe Fund office. If you wish to use a credit card or debit card to make a personal donation or a memorial donation for an upcoming funeral, we provide a Donate button at the top of the front page of this website, and at the bottom of each of our emailed newsletters. If you want to use one of the prepaid Visa debit cards sold in the Gene Grawe Fund office, the card will first need to be registered to you at the website on the back of the card.