In everyone’s life, there’s a point when they choose between doing what they really want to do and doing what they probably should do.

Isaac Gluesenkamp told one of those stories Sept. 15 at the foundation’s 25th anniversary gala.

For students fortunate enough to earn scholarships from the Brown County Community Foundation, career dreams don’t have to end for lack of resources. The only thing limiting them could be their own strength and courage.

Gluesenkamp was a standout student-athlete throughout his Brown County Schools career. He earned the Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship in 2014 through the foundation, granting him a full ride to any Indiana college or university.

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He’d known when he was in high school that he was interested in medical school, but the odds seemed long that he’d get in. The thought crossed his mind: “Am I really that smart?”

He’s going to find out. He’s now in his first semester as a first-year medical student at Indiana University.

He thanked the large crowd at the fundraising gala for giving him that chance.

“I can’t say that I know that I’d pursue this otherwise,” he said, about the head start that receiving the Lilly scholarship gave to him.

“I promise to use my resources to give resources to those who don’t have them,” he said, just as the foundation did for him.

That’s the point of the foundation’s work, said keynote speaker John Lechleiter, the retired CEO of Eli Lilly and Co. who now spends most of his time in Brown County.

It was a lesson his company instilled in its employees, and one that his parents taught him, growing up in Louisville in a family of 11. His father worked at a Ford dealership. “I don’t know how my parents did it,” he said.

Their message to their children was that there were many people who didn’t have what they did, and the should help them however they could.

The Brown County Community Foundation provides the mechanism to carry out that philanthropy. Through donations of a couple dollars to millions of dollars, it helps to invest and distribute money meant to make an impact in the lives of local people.

Ninety-eight percent of all donations are invested back into the community in the form of scholarships, grants and endowments, said outgoing foundation CEO Larry Pejeau.

Each year, the foundation gives back more than $500,000, Lechleiter said.

Eli Lilly and Co.’s Lilly Endowment helped spur the creation of the Brown County Community Foundation back in 1993 through a $500,000 challenge grant. Brown County stepped up and met that challenge and several others, growing the Brown County Community Foundation’s endowment to more than $11 million in assets, Lechleiter said.

He called the foundation “a force for good that is unmatched in this community.”

Still, the county faces many unmet needs, he said.

“From those to whom much has been given, much is expected,” he told the crowd.

He started out a “reverse auction” to support the foundation with a $10,000 donation of his own.

The room responded, giving more than $50,000 that evening to support the new BCCF 25th Anniversary Fund. It will support community grants in Brown County in perpetuity, Pejeau said.

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