Life-Saving Partnerships with Spearfish Community Foundation

Since 1998, the Spearfish Community Foundation (SCF) has been enhancing lives across northwestern South Dakota through its community savings account (CSA) endowment. Established in partnership with South Dakota Community Foundation (SDCF), this fund has invested over $1 million into the Spearfish area.

In 2021, SCF launched the “Impacting Tomorrow Today” initiative, aimed at driving higher-impact projects that address key community needs. This initiative has enabled SCF to collaborate with the City of Spearfish on large-scale projects—like the Spearfish Wayfinding Rec Path Sign Project, Spearfish Flood Relief Fund, and the Public Access AED Community Project—making a real difference for residents.

Sue Konstant, SCF President, and Beth Massa, Director of Foundation Relations at SDCF, sat down for a conversation about how SCF works to support the Spearfish community through engaging partnerships. One project has brought the community together to save lives–the Public Access AED Community Project.

This initiative aims to bring life-saving Automated External Defibrillator (AED) devices to the Spearfish community. With sudden cardiac arrest being a leading cause of death in the United States, SCF kicked off the first phase of the project, placing 11 AED towers around the city to help save lives if anyone in the community were to need one. SCF also offered grants to fund other nonprofits so they could purchase wall and portable AEDs to be housed inside their facilities.

“We are so passionate about this project, and I believe what we are talking about today is really important,” shared Sue. “Spearfish hosts numerous largely attended events in the area such as the Dakota Five-O here, Arts in the Park and full and half marathons, so we see this project as a vital effort to protect the health of our residents and visitors alike.”

Spearfish serves as a main hub of the tourism industry in Western South Dakota and draws a large base of outdoor enthusiasts. However, it is also a challenging city to navigate during the summer tourism season. Through this project, SCF is working to ensure the gap between someone suffering from sudden cardiac arrest and first responders' ability to reach them is significantly shortened.

“We learned from previous projects that we needed to go through the correct channels to ensure that this life-saving project would be a success,” said Sue, “and the City of Spearfish really stood behind us and supported us, and this has helped us move forward with the next steps.”

This project has been an act of coming together. Generosity and collaboration are key to its success. As a result of their efforts, in just two years SCF has successfully facilitated the installation of 22 outdoor and indoor AED towers throughout Spearfish. In fact, the positive impact of this project has extended beyond just the Northern Black Hills. Sue shared that a community in North Carolina was inspired, and reached out to SCF to learn about how they could begin working on their own public access AED project.

“We could not have done this without community support,” reflected Sue, “It’s truly humbling, and without the City of Spearfish, our donors, strategic partners and sponsors, we wouldn’t have gained momentum to see this life-saving project come to fruition.”