The Jolly Foundation Home Page

The Jolly Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) private, non-profit organization created to support and protect the environment with a particular interest in the protection of the sea turtles and land conservation, to support the arts, and to support brain injury and brain disease concerns.

Our founding inspiration is Mary Ellen McKee, who was majoring in Earth Systems at Stanford University. She was injured as a pedestrian by a car during her Senior year at Stanford.

Mary Ellen's love for sea turtles is well known by her friends and family. She spent a week every summer from the time she was eleven volunteering on the Caretta Project, a loggerhead sea turtle protection and tagging project run by the Savannah Science Museum on Wassaw Island. Wassaw Island is a barrier island off the coast of Savannah, Georgia with one of the longest running loggerhead sea turtles projects in the world. The Foundation will fund an annual scholarship for one participant in the Caretta project each summer. To apply, visit the Caretta Research Project web page.

Mary Ellen will serve as the guiding force behind the Foundation. While a Senior at Savannah Country Day School, she took an art class under instructor Kay Godawa. She produced three wonderful pictures which are displayed here. For a donation of $500, you may choose one of these prints as a gift. We are actively soliciting donations to the Foundation of any sum. If you wish to make a contribution, you can send your check or money order, made out to Jolly Foundation and send to The Jolly Foundation, SunTrust Bank, c/o Jackie Clifton, P.O. Box 8668, Savannah, GA 31412-8668.

Along with a Board of Advisors composed of Stanford University and Savannah Country Day friends and family, Mary Ellen will review proposals for grants and assist in the decision process. However, the Foundation is not actively seeking proposals at this time. Information regarding proposals will be posted on this web site when appropriate.