P R E S S R E L E A S E
______
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: TISH LYNN 843-723-3635
The Community Foundation Serving Coastal South Carolina
Awards $266,000 in Open Grants
To 41 Non-profit Organizations
CHARLESTON, SC (October 10, 2003): At a special reception on Friday, October 10th, The Community FoundationServing Coastal South Carolina (TCF) awarded more than $266,000 through its annual Open Grants program to 41 charitable organizations in Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester and Georgetown counties. These competitive grants are given to a myriad of organizations working in the areas of education, health, basic human needs, conservation and preservation, community development and the arts. Since its inception in 1994, Open Grants has awarded more than $1.25 million in these four counties.
A total of 105 qualified applicants requested $929,000 in grants this year for work in the areas of human needs, the environment and conservation, education, health, community development and the arts.
Two examples of the those programs receiving grants in Charleston County illustrate the broad range of Open Grants support. The Friends of the Charleston County Library received $6,300 to create a permanent section within the John’s Island Branch to house materials documenting and preserving the unique Sea Island “Gullah” culture of the Lowcountry, while the East Cooper Community Outreach will use its $9,000 grant to help purchase dental equipment for its new clinic to provide hundreds of uninsured and under-insured, low-income individuals with essential dental care.
Open Grants is an annual, competitive program to which all non-profit organizations in Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester and Georgetown counties may apply. Grant awards range from $1,500 to $10,000. A volunteer committee of community leaders oversees the selection process, which spans several months. “The Open Grants application process helps us know which groups are doing what to strengthen the community,” said Richard Hendry, VP of Programs at TCF. “We can then share that information with our donors, hoping that more gifts might follow.”
Funding is made possible through the growth of endowments begun by local donors as well as a significant gift from the Bunnelle Foundation to support charitable work specifically in Georgetown County. More than $166,000 went to organizations in the Tri-County area and a little over $99,000 going to support charitable causes in Georgetown County. (See attached list)
Even with an increase in this year’s grant money, many worthy organizations’ needs are unmet. If you’d like to learn more about them and how to make a gift or receive a grant, call 843-723-3635 or visit our website at:
OPEN GRANTS
Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Counties - $166,919
ARTS
Communities in Schools Berkeley County($10,000) – To help support “Berkeley Sings”, a pilot choral class offered to 90 rural, middle school students at Berkeley, St. Stephen, and Cross, as well as after-school tutoring, enrichment activities and hot meals (provided to over 250 children). Research shows that students who take music lessons increase their standardized test scores in addition to decreasing negative behaviors.
EDUCATION
Audubon Center & Sanctuary at Beidler Forest ($8,450) - To support the “Multi-Year Multi-Visit School Program,” providing 1,640 students with hands-on environmental education in this ancient blackwater swamp preserve. Half of the participating students are from small, rural, predominately minority school systems of the area surrounding the swamp.
Division of Learning Services, Berkeley County School District ($5,500) – To help purchase materials for the "Academic and Creative Enrichment" (ACE) program, which is an innovative and rigorous curriculum for grades 3 - 6 that will transform students into "Mission Specialists" as they design a mission to Mars and beyond.
Exchange Club Parent/Child Resource Center($6,200) – To support the “Parent Aides Nurturing and Developing Adolescents” (PANDA) program’s academic and career development component. Twenty first-time teen parents (under the age of 16) will be tutored and mentored to complete high school and enter an institution of higher learning to prepare for a trade or career and independent living.
Friends of the Charleston Co. Library($6,300) – To create a permanent section within the new John’s Island Branch Library to house materials documenting and preserving the unique Sea Island “Gullah” culture.
LifeManagement Center($1,200) - To help pay for an outside expert to conduct an evaluation study of the Center’s tutoring and consultation services which help individuals and families who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Learning Differences (LD) meet life’s challenge.
Parents & Children Together($3,500) - To support the Wednesday program at Cherokee Place United Methodist Church in North Charleston, which provides 10 weeks of two-hour classes each week in early childhood education and parent education to parents and their children, addressing topics including discipline, anger management, toilet training, sibling rivalry.
Sea Island Comprehensive Health Care($3,500) - To hire an additional teacher for the early childhood development center in Hollywood, which provides skill and age-appropriate curriculum for children 0-4. Residents are 95% African-American, with 60% living at or below the poverty level.
St. Matthew’s Community Outreach Center($5,900) - To help purchase the “Academy of Reading” software, a computer-based approach to improving students’ phonemic awareness and decoding skills. Research results have shown that after 25 hours of use, the software raises students’ levels of comprehension a minimum of 2½ grade levels, while many students achieve up to four grade level gains.
ENVIRONMENT
Charleston County Building Services ($3,400) – To support “Project Impact: Build-A-Dune”, which will enhance dune systems on Sullivan’s Island and/or the Isle of Palms to preserve them from loss due to erosion and human causes. Volunteers from the Girl and Boy Scouts, Rotary Club and Turtle Club members, among others, will participate.
Lowcountry Conservation Loan Fund of TCF($3,913) - To defray administrative costs to operate the $1 million Fund, which serves as a permanent resource of interim loans for Lowcountry conservation organizations to protect land with significant ecological, wildlife, scenic and recreational value.
HEALTH
American Lung Association($2,300) - To help fund “Camp Puff 'n Stuff”, a 6-day residential summer camp for children, ages 7 - 11, with moderate to severe asthma, where they can have fun and learn how to identify, prevent and treat an asthma attack.
Association for the Blind($3,000) - To help support “Living Well with Partial Vision,” a program that helps individuals suffering severe vision loss adjust to their condition and live independently. Occupational therapists go to patients’ homes to determine self-care skills and together they create an independent living plan.
Camp Good Times ($6,300)- To help provide a two-week summer camp experience for 50 children with autism to interact with 53 normally developing peers. In collaboration with the SC Dept. of Education, 23 classroom teachers will complete practicum training at the camp, and will gain certification using a nationally approved teaching technique.
Carolina Hearing Aid Bank($5,000) - To expand the client base from five to six clients per month. The current income guidelines allow for a yearly family income of $14,000, which is the US poverty level, and clients are typically elderly and disabled people on fixed incomes. By increasing the minimum qualifying income to $17,000, a greater number of people could be served that cannot afford hearing instruments on their current income. The average cost of assisting a client is $250, and 50 individuals have been helped between July 1, 2002 until May 15, 2003.
East Cooper Community Outreach ($9,000) - To help purchase equipment for the new dental clinic, which currently provides services to over 700 uninsured or underinsured, low-income residents of the East Cooper and Charleston metro area. ECCO is collaborating with MUSC, DHEC, the State Dental Office, Franklin C. Fetter Community Health Center, and the SC Dental Association to improve and expand the clinic’s services.
Happy Days & Special Times($3,500) - To help support two programs - the Disney World trip and “Dream Dates”. The Disney trip gives teens with cancer and their siblings a once-in-a-lifetime 5 fun-filled days in Disney World. “Dream Dates” boost morale for children who are newly diagnosed, suffering a relapse, or facing a terminal prognosis by fulfilling their activity wish such as a lunch at a favorite restaurant; a surprise limousine ride, a shopping spree splurge, and more.
MUSC College of Nursing ($10,000) – To help pay for a nurse-midwife for the “Madre Y Nino” program provided at the Wellness House, which is located at Our Lady of Mercy Outreach Center on John’s Island. Prenatal care is provided for low-income Hispanic women living on John’s and Wadmalaw Islands, who are ineligible for existing state and federal insurance programs. In the first five months of 2003, 642 women received care.
St. Luke’s THE ARK($7,000) – To help provide scholarships to attend THE ARK, a respite care program, providing information and referral, educational opportunities for caregivers and volunteers dealing with patients and family members suffering from Alzheimer’s.
HUMAN NEEDS
Carolina Autism Supported Living Services($9,000) – To help support three residential homes (a fourth is planned) for the more than 300 people with autism in the Lowcountry to live in a safe, nurturing environment with unconditional acceptance, in a neighborhood setting.
Carolina Youth Development Center($3,500) - To enhance the medical and psychiatric services at the Charleston Emergency Shelter (one of two emergency shelters operated in the tri-county by the Center) for children who have been removed from their homes because of documented abuse and must stay longer due to dwindling foster homes.
Children in Crisis($5,000) - To help fund a “Filial Family Therapy Program,” to address the needs of young children (ages 3-10), residing in Dorchester County, who are removed from their homes and placed in foster care due to physical and/or sexual abuse. Its purpose is to improve the consistency and success of foster care placements.
Crisis Ministries ($9,000) - To help defray medical and utility expenses of the “Family Center” and “Healthcare for the Homeless” program, which serves the sober homeless of Charleston (69%), Berkeley, Dorchester, Colleton and Georgetown Counties. Last year, 356 individuals and families moved from the shelter into stable housing.
Humanities Foundation($3,500) – To help support “ElderNet,” a safety net program providing rent subsidies for very low-income elderly persons (62 years old or older), identified by community service providers as being “at risk”.
Meals on Wheels East Cooper ($4,000) – To help cover a one-time setup cost for expanded outreach and community awareness activities (displays and print materials), as well as staff support for the development of improved volunteer training procedures and evaluation services.
Outward Bound($4,000) – To help support Charleston’s “Families In Need of Services” (FINS) program, which includes an intensive 18-day canoeing and/or backpacking expedition, a family-focused 10-day follow-up component, and completion of community service projects for 110 at-risk juvenile offenders, 13 to 17 years of age.
United Methodist Relief Center($9,000) - To help support the assessment phase of the “Owner-Occupied Rehabilitation Program”, which identifies and determines the qualification of 35 families to receive housing assistance. Participants must have incomes at or below 30% of the county median income, and live in substandard housing in the rural tri-county area.
NEIGHBORHOOD & COMMUNITY
Charleston Area Children’s Garden Project / SC Coastal Conservation League ($2,000) – To help support seven community gardens, located in formerly vacant, overgrown patches of land at a homeless shelter, in a Habitat neighborhood and a Boys and Girls Club. Each garden is sponsored by a neighborhood council or youth organization with adult assistance.
Girl Scouts of Carolina Low Country($3,000) - To help provide financial assistance for girls to participate in “Community Based Programs” such as “Daisy READ” and “Girl Power” within Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester, and Georgetown counties.
McClellanville Arts Council ($3,744) - To help support youth programs, which provide music lessons, running teams, and a field trip for special needs children at St. James-Santee Elementary School.
WINGS for kids ($7,212) – To help support the “Leadership Academy”, a new program designed to meet the needs of middle school children in Charleston County, where 42% of middle schools receive “below average” or “unsatisfactory” report cards. Children will spend at least 10 hours a week in the program, which will include community service involvement.
OPEN GRANTS
Georgetown County – Total grants - $99,320
ARTS
Cultural Council of Georgetown County($10,000) - To help institute a $10,000 sub-grant program ($4,000 matching grant from SC Arts Commission) for the further development of arts and cultural programming in Georgetown County, while continuing to create arts education programs for 8,000 students and 750 individuals in local schools and to promote the county as a destination for cultural tourism.
EDUCATION
Friends of the Georgetown Co. Library($10,000) - To help obtain 15,000 new books for the Carvers Bay Branch Library (Northwest corner of Georgetown County), scheduled to open in the summer of 2004. The new library will serve a population of 7,000, only 3% of whom currently have access to books through the Georgetown Library bookmobile service or outlying libraries.
Holy Cross Faith Memorial Episcopal Church ($10,000) – To help support “Miss Ruby’s Kids”, a pilot outreach program, for 5 families, to address the education of children at risk for school failure.
Howard Adult Center ($10,000) – To help support an intense, three-year tutoring project, “Opening the Shutters”, which will target Georgetown Co. adults who are unemployed, welfare recipients, dislocated workers, and/or illiterate to get the help they need to finish their high school education.
SEWEE Association($9,320) – To help continue and expand the “Earth Stewards” program, in partnership with schools to provide a 9-week curriculum on freshwater wetlands that integrates science, math, and language arts curriculum standards for the 5th grade, and a study of salt marshes and barrier islands for the 7th grade.
ENVIRONMENT
SC Environmental Law Project($10,000) – To help provide environmental legal assistance to citizens, grass roots and environmental organizations working to increase protection of natural resources and the environment, and better enforce the state’s existing environmental laws.
HUMAN NEEDS
American Red Cross, Georgetown Chapter($10,000) – To help support disaster preparation and outreach and provide trained damage assessment volunteers.
Grand Strand Community Against Rape ($10,000) - To help defray costs of the outreach program, designed to educate the Georgetown community about the incidents of sexual assault in the county, as well as to inform law enforcement officials and hospitals of available services.
Women’s Safe Harbour Foundation($10,000) - To help pay for a full-time “Crisis Counselor” to provide initial screening, advisement of legal rights and responsibilities, and essential treatment during the healing process at the shelter.
NEIGHBORHOOD & COMMUNITY
Service Over Self – ($10,000) - To help continue programs and services for the youth of Georgetown County, which focus on service, character education, and self-esteem building.
Established in 1974, The Community Foundation Serving Coastal South Carolina is a public grantmaking foundation fostering philanthropy for the lasting good of the community in Beaufort, Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton, Dorchester, Georgetown, Hampton and Jasper counties. Thousands of families, businesses, individuals and organizations have built funds and endowments at TCF to benefit specific charities and/or broad areas of community life – education, basic human needs, conservation and preservation, arts, health and neighborhood/community development. Last year, TCF funds generated over $5.4 million for charitable programming of all kinds.