Posted on January 7, 2012

Community Foundation Update (1/07/12)

California

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation has announced fourteen grants totaling $836,417 to help expand and improve English language instruction for immigrants in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The grants are designed to improve coordination between community colleges and adult schools, provide "anytime-anywhere" programs that use a mix of onsite and online technology to deliver instruction, and help immigrants acquire employment-related language skills.

The Ellsworth-based Maine Community Foundation has announced $470,500 in grants to fourteen organizations through the Quality of Place initiative of the Environmental Funders Network. Recipients include the Androscoggin Land Trust, Grow Smart Maine, the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association, and the Trust for Public Land. Now in its third and final year, the network is a joint project of the foundation and the Maine Philanthropy Center.

The Athens Community Foundation has awarded thirty grants totaling $138,040 to twenty-seven Athens-based civic, sports, cultural, fraternal, educational, and governmental groups, the Greene County News reports. Recipients include the local Little League, library, and senior center.

The Iredell County Community Foundation, an affiliate of the Charlotte-based Foundation for the Carolinas (http://www.fftc.org/), has awarded twenty grants totaling $91,000 to area organizations, the Statesville Record & Landmark reports. Recipients include the Barium Springs Home for Children, Appropriate Placement Options, Iredell Museums, and Hospice & Palliative Care of Iredell County.

Albany General Hospital Foundation has received a $20,000 grant from the Miller Charitable Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation in support of the construction of the Samaritan Evergreen Hospice House, the Democrat Herald reports. The twelve-bed facility, which will be only the third in the area when it opens in July 2012, aims to provide care and dignity to patients who are dying.

The Vermont Country Store (VCS) has announced that it is partnering with the Middlebury-based Vermont Community Foundation to create the Good Neighbor Fund, which will assist VCS employees who experience disasters and other hardships. The fund aims to enhance the store's longstanding philanthropy program, which provides support to more than six hundred nonprofit and community organizations annually in the sixty-five communities where its employees live and work.

The Oshkosh Area Community Foundation has announced that it will host a workshop for charitable groups interested in seeking grants to help meet local residents' basic needs and address poverty-related issues. The workshop will provide an overview of what kind of programs and projects may be funded and how to complete the grant application, as well as answer questions about the process.