COMO Annual Fund

The COMO’s mission is to inspire a welcoming, collaborative and engaged community through intellectual growth, active play and creative expression.

Established in 1945, the Stonington Community Center covers a 16-acre campus. The main building, located at 28 Cutler Street in Stonington, CT, houses a pottery studio, NAEYC-accredited preschool program, gymnasium and auditorium. The campus also includes a thrift store, makerspace, 4 paddle courts with warming hut, 4 deco-turf tennis courts, children’s garden, pond, playground and sports fields. Programs run year-round spanning the entire COMO campus.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are the backbone of COMO’s culture as an organization committed to supporting a strong and vibrant community. We embrace and encourage our community’s differences in age, color, ability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other characteristics that make our community unique.

The COMO provides an affordable fee structure, which is supported by fundraising efforts, participates with state child care subsidy benefits, and provides various program scholarships designed to remove financial barriers to program access. As a nationally-accredited child care center our curriculum reflects the COMO’s values that champion diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our programs establish and maintain collaborative relationships with each child’s family and are sensitive to family composition, language, and culture. Teachers gain information about the ways families define their own race, religion, home language, culture, and family structure and use that information to adapt the curriculum and teaching methods to the families served. Language diversity is incorporated into the curriculum and the physical space of our classrooms. Materials and equipment used to implement the curriculum reflect the lives of the children and families as well as the diversity found in society.

As an educational institution, we are a team of lifelong learners who embrace opportunities to learn and grow. Diversity, equity and inclusion are central to our legacy of service and we seek out opportunities to learn about our own unconscious bias, deliver inclusive experiences and model these values in our actions. It is our belief that bringing together people from a wide range of backgrounds with unique perspectives, in all facets of our nonprofit organization, fosters innovation, creativity, inclusivity as well as strengthens community.

• Annual Fund Gifts: The COMO’s Annual Fund provides critically needed support to the COMO’s programs and operations. Make an online donation to the COMO annual fund!
• To make an impact all year long, consider joining the COMO monthly donor program. COMO monthly donors make an investment in COMO-unity by pledging a gift each month.
• Matching Gifts: You may increase your contribution to the COMO if your workplace has a matching gifts program. Matching gifts include monetary donations corporate matches for cash donation and volunteer service. See your company’s Human Resources Office for information.
• Special Events: The COMO hosts a number of special events during the year. One time-honored major fundraising event is the annual Village Fair. The fair has been held the first Saturday in August for over 60 years. Special events, such as the Village Fair, support our program scholarship fund, meet a critical need and maintain general operations. Recently funded projects include new energy efficient windows and a new van.

The COMO’s Endowment Fund provides perpetual support to the community center. The principal of a gift to the Endowment Fund is invested and managed by a professional financial planner with oversight by the COMO Finance Committee. The fund’s interest and dividend income contributes to a capital budget designed to assist in the maintenance of the COMO’s much loved, but aging, facilities. Building a significant Endowment Fund is essential to ensuring the COMO’s ability to sustain our infrastructure so as to preserve and build upon our legacy of service for present and future generations.

Memorial and Tribute Gifts are expressions of love and respect. A Tribute Gift shows a person that you care and wish to honor them. A Memorial Gift honors the memory of a friend or loved one. Each Tribute Gift honoree is notified that a gift has been made in his/her honor. Recent Tribute Gifts have included the planting of trees to beautify the campus and entrance into the borough and benches for the Bear’s Field and the paddle facility. Please click here if you would like to make a memorial donation.

The decision to make a planned gift to the Stonington Community Center is a way to continue giving and supporting the COMO now and into the future. A planned gift is arranged by you legally during your lifetime. Planned gifts take many forms, providing additional income for you and/or your heirs, reducing income and estate taxes, relieving you and your heirs of complicated financial management responsibilities and helping to fulfill your personal and charitable objectives. Planned gifts can be made in cash, real estate, stocks, bonds, personal property or life insurance. Below are several ways to make this gift. Please contact your financial advisor regarding various gift types.

1. Gifts of Cash
   The simplicity and ease of giving are the reasons that cash is the most popular type of giving. A gift of cash is considered given on the date it is made to the fund.

2. Bequests by Will
   One of the simplest planned gifts is a bequest through your will in which you designate either a specific dollar amount or a percentage of your estate after other disbursements. A bequest also can reduce the amount of your taxable estate, which may increase the actual amount available to loved ones

3. Gifts of Security
   A gift of long-term securities generally results in several federal tax benefits. You are entitled to an income tax deduction for the full market value of the securities as of the date of your gift. You are not liable for the capital gains tax you would incur if you sold the securities.

4. A Gift of Property
   Real property in any location may be given to the COMO, provided it meets certain criteria. If the property is owned one year or longer, the fair market value is deductible, no capital gains taxes are payable on appreciation and the property is removed from your taxable estate. Donations of a personal residence are welcome and you can retain use of them throughout your lifetime.

5. Life Insurance
   Contributions of life insurance can provide a substantial gift to the COMO. The value of an ordinary policy at the time of the gift is tax deductible. If you continue paying the premiums, they also are deductible as charitable contributions. If a paid-up policy is given, the cost of purchasing a new paid-up policy at your current age is the value of the charitable deduction.