The Owen County Children’s Fund has a history of helping the area’s youth.
Relying solely on donations and the help of local churches and youth organizations, the Owen County Children’s Fund provides services in four basic areas — food, clothing, dental and medical.
Originated in 1982 by Mike Ramsey and Tom Taylor, the organization provided a much needed service.
“At the time (1982) I was working as a guidance counselor at the elementary school,” said Ramsey, who now serves as the group’s treasurer.
“We had so many kids that just had basic needs,” he said. “Tom and I sat down and put our heads together and said ‘there are plenty of people out there that would want to give to help kids.’ It was just a matter of organizing it.”
Ramsey and Taylor developed a constitution, found other volunteers who wanted to help out, and formed the Owen County Children’s Fund.
Now, the group has a board of directors who survey each application and decide the best way to help people.
“If someone has a need, they can submit an application,” Ramsey said. “We expedite pretty quickly. We’re not a bureaucracy. Almost 100 percent of the funds go towards helping kids.”
Ramsey said in an emergency, such as a house fire, the process works quickly to immediately provide the children with the basic necessities, such as clothing.
The group pays a small fee and rents a post office box, but Ramsey said the goal this year is to find volunteers to pay those bills so that 100 percent of the money will go to needy children.
Where the organization finds many of those children is through the Owen County Family Resource Center (primary and elementary schools) and the Owen County Youth Service Center (middle and high schools).
“There’s a lot of kids that don’t have medical cards, or they have insurance, but it doesn’t cover medical or dental,” said Beverly Marcum, a board member for the Children’s Fund and the coordinator of the Family Resource Center.
Marcum said last year the Children’s Fund helped 278 children, getting donations from various individuals, organizations and churches in Owen County that contribute on a regular basis.
While the Children’s Fund has received enough donations to provide for everyone in need, Marcum said she’s seen an alarming drop-off in donations over the past few years.
She estimates that the monetary value of donations has fallen $1,000 a year for the past three years.
“If it continues to go down over the course of the next three to five years, we’ll be unable to support the requests we get,” Marcum said.

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