America's Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia (new grantee)

Referred By: Heikki Larsen
Contact: Mary Jane Crouch
Grant Amount: $5,000.00

America's Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia was established in 1981 as a response to hunger and food waste. By 2009, Second Harvest provided 7.1 million pounds of food to more than 90,000 people, including 56,000 children. SFC supports the Kids' Café, which was created in 1989 when two young boys were found searching for food in an area housing project. This Savannah initiative is now nationwide with 1,700 Kids Cafés providing more than 2,000,000 meals in 2009. Now Second Harvest sponsors 34 Kids Cafés in four counties that serve more than 2,500 hot evening meals to children. The program’s unique approach to ending the cycle of poverty and hunger provides at-risk children hot, nutritionally-balanced meals in safe, nurturing environments. Children receive homework assistance and tutoring to improve their academic performance along with nutrition education, cultural enrichment, and physical activities. During the summer months, Kids Cafés provide children with two meals a day.

American Cancer Society

South Atlantic Division
950 48th Avenue North, Suite 101
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
P 843.213.0333 x 206

Contact: Melany Mader, Community Manager
Grant Amount: $1,500.00

SFC is proud to support Krysta Price, a Margaritaville employee in Myrtle Beach who coordinates the store's participation in the annual Conquering Cancer Walk/Run. This charity run/walk is an event full of love, compassion and empowerment. It does not focus on or single out one particular cancer, but speaks to everyone’s common battles, struggles, losses, and victories. Every cancer will be represented and together as a community walkers and runners come together to take one step closer to fighting a disease that affects so many of us and the ones we love.

B.O.R.N. (Better Opportunities Right Now)

828 Royal Street
New Orleans, LA 70116
P 504.453.3664
www.betteropportunitiesrightnow.com

Contact: Tyra Brown
Grant Amount: $5,000.00

BORN's specific purpose is to provide "Better Opportunities Right Now" by connecting socio-economically disadvantaged citizens with life skills information and resources through education, advocacy and referral services. Our mission is achieved through education, professional development, collaboration and referral services in two key ways: by developing a community populated by individuals united by their desire to make a lasting difference in the lives of those in need, and by taking on challenging projects to improve the community. BORN's projects include:

• Financial Freedom
• Gulf Coast Family Reunion Showcase
• High School Help
• Hope for the Holidays
• "In Memory of" Project
• Life Skills
• MOMS program
• Senior Support

Bahama Village Music Program

727 Fort Street
Key West, FL 30040
305.292.9628
katchen@bvmpkw.org, www.bvmpkw.org

Referred By: Margaritaville Store Key West
Contact: Katchen Duncan
Grant Amount: $4,009.54

The Bahama Village Music Program was created in 1999 to honor Ellen Sanchez, a beloved music teacher in Bahama Village whose retirement left a void in the community. The program provides free music education to the children of Bahama Village residents, a historic community of multi-generational Bahamian Conchs. Its primary goal is to create an effective learning environment for developing music skills and self-esteem, while nurturing a strong sense of community among young residents of Bahama Village.

The music program’s participants aged six to sixteen and now representing the entire Key West community, are encouraged to explore many aspects of music, from learning notes, rhythm, counting, tempo, and style to perfecting their performance skills in piano, guitar, violin, percussion, steel pan, woodwinds, choir, dance, and juggling. Professional music educators, adult volunteers, and high school students teach private and group lessons throughout the school year. Students in the Bahama Village Music Program perform in free concerts and recitals for their families and residents of Key West throughout the year. These young performers sustain our program’s belief that music can remove barriers, unite diverse cultures, and uplift the spirits of our community.

Boys Hope Girls Hope of New Orleans

P.O. Box 19307
New Orleans, LA 70179-0307
P 504.484.7744,
F 504.484.6120,
C 985.502.7729
nolaprogram@bhgh.org, www.bhghnola.org

Referred By: Margaritaville Store New Orleans
Contact: Lindsay Hymel
Grant Amount: $1,000.00

Boys Hope Girls Hope of Greater New Orleans provides children in need between the ages of 8 and 18 with a stable home, positive parenting, high-quality education, and the support needed to reach their full potential. Local founders, Fr. Harry Tompson, S.J. and Hon. Adrian G. Duplantier, recognized that a child’s ability to thrive requires both high-quality academics and a safe, nurturing home environment. Boys Hope Girls Hope is unique, and particularly effective in changing children’s lives, because it fills both of these needs - it helps children succeed by offering them a stable home, college preparation, and round-the-clock support. It empowers youth by surrounding them with healthy environments, mentors, and college expectations. It builds self-esteem through relationships, involving families as advocates for their children, exposing youth to college preparation, and giving children a meaningful connection to society through service. Singing for Change matched a contribution from Margaritaville New Orleans in support of BHGH's general programming.

Climate Cycle (new grantee)

1415 W Devon
Chicago, IL 60660
P 773.942.6845
F .773.942.6845
www.climatecycle.org, info@climatecycle.org

Contact: Joey Feinstein
Grant Amount: $10,000.00

Climate Cycle was founded in 2008 out of a concern that today's youth lacked the tools necessary to respond to global warming or benefit from the emerging green economy. Today, Climate Cycle leads the charge in catalyzing environmental education in the classroom and in our communities by developing young leaders in sustainability. Since 2009, Climate Cycle has inaugurated eleven solar schools. These schools are recipients of solar systems and a dynamic school curriculum to maximize hands-on learning. The selected schools share a vision of climate solutions and energy independence from the students, faculty, administration, and beyond. Climate Cycle utilizes renewable energy because it's an available technology that provides tangible learning opportunities while saving taxpayer money.

The need for energy independence has never been greater. Schools spend more on utilities than books and computers combined. Therefore, a majority of taxpayer dollars are leaving our communities. Buildings generate more carbon emissions than cars, trains, and planes altogether. Schools are an ideal placement for renewable energy systems because they save money while offering an effective climate change solution with educational benefits. Climate Cycle absorbs the upfront cost of the solar system, and the complementary curriculum give youth the knowledge and skills to respond to climate change. By working with local public schools, Climate Cycle takes the green economy into classrooms and neighborhoods, making it accessible to everyone.

Domenica Organic Agriculture Movement (DOAM) c/o The Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and Americas (FAVACA) and Organicenterprises

1310 N. Paul Russell Road
Tallahassee, FL 32301
P 850.410.3100
F 850.922.4849
www.favaca.org

Contact: Demian Pasquirelli
Grant Amount: $30,000.00

The Dominican Organic Agriculture Movement (DOAM) is a private, nonprofit organization established in 2006 to facilitate and promote a responsible organic industry in Dominica. In collaboration with the Florida Association for Volunteer Action the Caribbean and Americas (FAVACA) and Organicenterprises, DOAM will focus on building a grassroots infrastructure to support fundamental change in the agricultural sector of the economy of this tropical island. DOAM seeks to promote sustainable development of the organic farming industry in Dominica whereby the use of local natural resources is made safe and cost effective. One of the primary aims of DOAM is to establish a set of high quality standards to guide its members on practices and procedures of organic production in order to meet international criteria of the Organic Certification Process. Any person, institution, or firm committed to the vision of developing a sustainable organic industry is eligible for membership. Please direct questions to: inquiry@doamdominica.org

Local, regional, and international market opportunities exist for products from Dominica, and the project will result in establishing clear supply and demand channels, but the potential of this project goes beyond market opportunities. It intends to build food security from the ground up, hopefully establishing a new model for self-sufficiency in the Caribbean and beyond. Funds will support the hiring of staff, office space, and administrative cost to establish the organization and build capacity to raise funds. Funds also allow FAVACA and Organicenterprises to provide training and technical assistance on organizational and board development as well as one volunteer consultant to help local DOAM staff formalize a market survey and assist with its implementation.

EarthEcho International (new grantee)

888 16th Street NW Suite 800
Washington, DC 20006
P 202.349.9828
F 202.355.1399
info@earthecho.org, earthecho.org

Contact: Mia DeMezza, Executive Director
Grant Amount: $25,000.00

EarthEcho International’s mission is to empower youth to take action that protects and restores our water planet. The organization’s goals are to: be a source of leadership for our water planet; forge collaborations and partnerships to bring new allies to the ocean conservation movement; and use media and experiences to connect as many audiences as possible to inspiring stories and empowering resources. STREAM (STudents Reporting Environmental Action through Media), empowers youth to act as citizen journalists and guarantees that their voices will be heard. STREAM is a vital new youth citizen journalism movement that will engage, educate, and equip the next generation of journalists. The program was born out of an intersection between EarthEcho International’s soon-to-launch Water Planet Challenge program, and an on-the-ground response to the Gulf oil spill disaster. STREAM Gulf Coast Bureau will launch this December with resources and tools including an in-person professional development institute with service-learning and journalism industry professionals on December 1-2, 2010, in New Orleans, LA.

Family Connection (new grantee)

101 Industrial Park Rd.
Blue Ridge, GA 30513
706.258.4090
snackinabackpack@gmail.com

Contact: Gaye Whalton, Snack in a Backpack Director and Community Volunteer
Grant Amount: $2,500

Fannin County Family Connection, Inc. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization serving children and families in a small rural county where the Blue Ridge Mountains begin, bordering both Tennessee and North Carolina. Family Connection is part of a state-wide effort to bring all agencies, schools, businesses and local nonprofits together that work for children and families and to determine what services are offered to families, where gaps exist in services, and to fill those gaps using partner organizations. Because of the high unemployment rate in the county, numbers of families requesting emergency food through the AmeriCorps emergency food pantry increased. There arose a need to supplement those efforts with an outreach program for children. One of the partner organizations, Feed Fannin, a volunteer group that developed a community garden, established Snack in a Backpack program to meet the additional needs of the children in our elementary and middle schools.

This program is designed to provide food for children who get their meals at school and have little or nothing to eat on the weekends. Volunteers fill backpacks with non-perishable foods from a food list and deliver the packs to schools on Thursday or Friday. Each Friday, volunteers fill backpacks with nutritious food that will help to feed the children over the weekend, and may help feed their siblings as well. Children take the pack full of food home on Friday, return the empty pack on Monday, and the process is repeated weekly throughout the school year. The cost to fill each backpack is approximately $2.75 per week per child, or $110.00 to feed a child for the school year. Family Connection now works with the Chattanooga Food Bank allowing more food-purchasing power than previously, which in turn allows Family Connection to provide backpacks to more children. The project's goal is to end childhood hunger in Fannin County, one backpack at a time.

FAVACA (Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas)

FAVACA - South Florida
134 South Dixie Highway, Ste/ 217
Hallandale Beach, FL 33009
P 954.458.5613
F 954.458.5701
favaca@favaca.org

FAVACA- Tallahassee Office
1310 N. Paul Russell Road
Tallahassee, FL 32301
850.410.3100
F 850.922.4849

Contact: Demian Pasquirelli
Grant Amount: $100,000

The Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas (FAVACA) is a private, not-for-profit organization formed in 1982 by Florida Governor (now former U.S. Senator) Bob Graham. FAVACA's Florida International Volunteer Corps is the only program of its kind in the country. A state appropriation, voted annually since 1986, provides a funding base for volunteer missions to Latin America and the Caribbean, estimated at 200 trips in 2010.

Royal Palm is a Haitian organization dedicated to training and empowering Haitian communities to reach a higher level of self-sufficiency. FAVACA and Royal Palm are working in two communities in Haiti affected by the earthquake. Nearly forty people will find employment in construction projects helping to stimulate the local economy.

FAVACA is collaborating with Royal Palm to implement the Post Earthquake Capacity Building and Recovery Grants program, which focuses on providing vocational and agricultural training and recovery grants requested by the communities of Bas Gormand and Carrefour Feuilles. In addition to its community development role, the partnership advocates for a larger voice for local communities in international development programs and policies.

Irrigation Canals and Bridge Connect Farmers to New Markets in Bas Gormand
In the rural community of Bas Gormand, two FAVACA agricultural volunteers will provide training to farmers on sustainable agriculture and help to market produce with the aim of establishing new markets for the farmers, thereby increasing their profit margin. Farmers in Bas Gormand met with members of Royal Palm to express their concern over the current state of their irrigation canals. Due to a state of disrepair, the canals cannot filter the necessary amount of water to fields during the dry season. During the rainy season, the canals overflow, and the one bridge linking the community to outside markets is not accessible even with SUVs. With funding from SFC, FAVACA and Royal Palm will dredge and clean the canals, lay down pipes, and construct a small bridge to allow the community access to outside markets to sell their produce.

Rubble Removal in Carrefour Feuilles
In Carrefour Feuilles, an urban neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, five families (24 people total) lived in a two-story building consisting of five apartments before the earthquake. These five families took refuge in a tent city where they were exposed to many health and security risks. With a grant from SFC, these families will be able to return to the location of their apartments and build solid shelters in order to mitigate hazards such as cyclones, heavy rains, mold-infected dust, etc. Creating sturdier, temporary homes will allow the families privacy and make them more comfortable. Additionally, this project will create sixteen jobs in the community. Laborers will be hired to help break down and remove rubble from the former apartment complex. With little economic opportunities in the community since the earthquake, these jobs offer families money to pay for food, clothing, and education for their children.

globalbike inc. (new grantee)

424 Mustang Drive
Spartanburg, SC 29307
P 864.680.9464
www.globalbike.org

Contact: Curt McPhail
Grant Amount: $10,000

globalbike is a grassroots non-profit that supplies bicycles in third world countries to health care workers in poverty-stricken areas. Check out this worthwhile cause here. The globalbike cycling team will be raising money throughout the season to provide bicycles to workers who would otherwise walk to perform critical functions such as delivering HIV/AIDS medication in Zambia. On a bike, these people can travel three times farther, carry five times as much, and see three times the number of people. globalbike was founded with a simple mission: use the transformative power of bikes to create positive social change in the developing world. Its contagious vision is a world where bicycles and creative partnerships provide those in need with access to health care and services vital to their collective prosperity.

Unique in the nonprofit community and in the cycling world, the Globalbike Cycling Team (presented by Catoma Adventure Shelters) is the main marketing effort of globalbike. Are you ready for a road racing team, totally different than anything you've seen before, that is quickly ascending the ranks to become a professional squad in the years to come? At the beginning of 2011, it stands poised to rock the world of bicycle racing by continuing its dominance in the Southeast Region, making its presence felt on the National scene. Along the way, the team spreads the word of globalbike - bikes that make a difference for those most in need. By reading this, you are already part of the globalbike movement. Globalbike Cycling welcomes you to visit the races to learn how you can make a global difference with your cycling passion!

ride.climb.transform. Follow globalbike as we partner with Kilimanjaro Initiative to deliver over 114 bikes in Kenya & Tanzania from February 18th - March 6th. www.rideclimbtransform.org

Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratories, Inc. (new grantee)

P.O. Box 237
222 Clark Drive
Panacea, FL 32346
P 850.984.5297
F 850.984.5233
gspecimen@sprintmail.com, gulfspecimen.org

Contact: Jack and Anne Rudloe, Founders
Grant Amount: $35,000

Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory is a non-profit, 501(c) 3 organization founded in 1963 to support marine research and education both on site and at universities throughout the US and Canada.  Giving people an appreciation for the diversity of life in the sea and a desire to protect it is Gulf Specimen Lab's primary mission. The Lab does so by using touch tanks, graphic exhibits and conducting field trips to provide a unique "hands-on" experience enabling students to touch, smell, hear and even taste the odd and interesting creatures of the Gulf of Mexico, and develop an awareness and desire to protect the fragile life in the sea. To help maintain this facility, the Lab supplies schools and research laboratories with a wide variety of living marine life from the Gulf of Mexico. That service is essential to researchers all over the United States in many different fields of science; hence it has won state, national and international awards for its efforts.

More than a hundred school groups and 16,000 individuals visit each year to view hundreds of species of local invertebrates, fish and algae as well as sharks and sea turtles from the Gulf of Mexico. Exhibits are never the same twice. The marine biological supply operation that supports the Lab provides a constant flow of animals. A wide variety of invertebrates, fishes and algae are routinely collected and shipped to schools and research laboratories, hence no aquarium or standard marine laboratory with static exhibits can compete with it. At any given time, between one and two hundred species are present. Visitors are allowed to pick up and touch many of the animals, including starfish, sea pansies, sand dollars, whelks, clams, etc.

SFC supports the launch of “Operation Noah’s Ark,” Gulf Specimen Marine Lab's aggressive plan to mitigate the catastrophic effects of the oil spill on sea life in the Gulf of Mexico. This multi-pronged initiative will filter out harmful bacteria caused by the oil pollution, repopulate the Gulf’s waters with marine life, and reinvigorate local fisheries. “We can ensure a future for marine life in the Gulf, but we have to act fast and we cannot do it alone,” said Jack Rudloe, lab founder. “We need the support of donors and volunteers to get these programs launched as quickly as possible.” To combat the oil spill damage, Operation Noah’s Ark will

• retrofit lab facilities and a nearby shrimp hatchery with closed system technologies that can protect its specimens before oil hits the lab.
• submerge large branches into the Gulf to provide a habitat for oysters and other sea life. This helps repopulate species and helps filter and cleanse the water of excess plankton and bacteria.
• submerge manmade fiberglass habitats to create artificial reefs. These become home to many species of marine life and act as natural filters for the excess bacteria that often builds up after an oil spill.
• grow shrimp stocks in hatcheries. After the Gulf is no longer polluted with oil, the shrimp will be released into the sea where they will multiply, and fishermen will be able to harvest them.

Hands Together (new grantee)

P.O. Box 80985
Springfield, MA 01138
P 413.731.7716
F 413.731.6405
info@handstogether.org, handstogether.org

Contact: Doug Campbell, Executive Director
Grant Amount: $10,000

Hands Together is a nonprofit organization devoted to educating, inspiring, and encouraging people to understand the importance of responding to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. Hands Together was founded by Fr. Tom Hagan after he led a group of Lafayette College students to Haiti, and was compelled to respond to the needs of the poor there. He left his post as Catholic Chaplain to Princeton University and moved to Port-au-Prince in 1997. Since then, Hands Together has emerged as a key educational and development organization working in Haiti's largest and poorest slum, Cite Soleil. It has built free schools where there were none, and provided every student with a daily hot meal. It has 8 campuses, including a high school, a free clinic, and an outreach and housing program for the elderly. It is one of Cite Soleil's largest employers, giving decent, service-oriented jobs to hundreds of residents.

Hands Together's programs outside of Port-au-Prince promote human development among rural poor through water well digging, promoting agricultural and production, and assisting the poorest schools and clinics around the northern city of Gonaives. By establishing schools, orphanages, nutrition and feeding programs, medical clinics, sustainable-development projects, and by establishing partnerships with local leaders and communities, Hands Together is building a better world for thousands of suffering people in Haiti. Hands Together volunteers bring needed skills to many educational, health, and sustainable-development projects and provide hope to the poor living in Haiti. Their work is grounded in the universal teaching that recognizes dignity in every human life, and a fundamental responsibility to the poor and vulnerable. 

HandsOn New Orleans

4153 Canal Street
New Orleans, LA 70119
P 504.483.7041
F 504.483.7043
info@handsonneworleans.org, www.handsonneworleans.org

Contact: Geneva Marney
Grant Amount: $100,000.00, $50,000.00

HandsOn New Orleans inspires and motivates people to meet critical community needs by encouraging active citizenship through meaningful service. HandsOn takes a holistic approach by addressing a wide range of local issues through partnerships with non-profits, businesses, and public entities to help build our collective capacity and properly leverage community resources; while empowering individuals to develop their own service projects to help rebuild our communities. HandsOn New Orleans’ goal in our revitalizing efforts is to become a resource center for grassroots service. The Community Engagement Program devotes our resources to individuals in the community who want to spearhead service projects of all sizes. We offer tools, volunteer recruitment, leadership training, technology, project planning guidance, housing for visiting volunteers, and service learning opportunities to community members or visiting volunteers with a will to make a difference. This model is designed for residents to lead the project planning process, thus ensuring that our projects address critical community needs. These community leaders are youth, members of other organizations and neighborhood groups, and others from the community with great project ideas.
The Community Engagement Program consists of four distinct branches that work together to enhance the service movement that has developed in New Orleans post-Katrina, and to holistically address the needs in our community.

• Tool Lending Library grants community members and non-profits access to more than 4,800 tools to complete their own service projects.
• Youth Engagement Program provides community service, service learning, and leadership opportunities to youth in schools throughout New Orleans.
• Volunteer Leader Program provides trainings in project leadership, planning, and management that empowers community members to develop their own projects.
• Volunteer Housing Program provides affordable accommodations for thousands of "voluntourists" who continue to come to help in the recovery.

Since 2005, HandsOn New Orleans has mobilized over 15,000 volunteers, providing an estimated $13 million in economic benefits for New Orleans’ residents whose lives were devastated by the hurricanes. By leveraging national resources HandsOn New Orleans has been able to help restore homes, parks, and schools.

Hole in the Wall Gang Fund (new grantee)

555 Long Wharf Drive
New Haven, CT 06511
P 203.772.0522
F 203.782.1725
www.holeinthewallgang.org

Referred By: Jane Buffett
Contact: Deborah G. Fraser, Grants Manager, Foundation Relations
Grant Amount: $5,000

Founded in 1988 by Paul Newman, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp is a nonprofit, residential summer camp and year-round center serving children and their families coping with cancer and other serious illnesses and conditions. In collaboration with its associated camps in the United States and abroad, Hole in the Wall Gang provides children with cancer and other serious illnesses and conditions a camping experience of the highest quality, while extending year-round support to their families and health care providers. The Camp serves more than 15,000 annually. All of the Camp's services are provided free of charge. Each summer, about 1,000 seriously ill children enjoy a unique camping experience that promotes joy, builds courage, and instills hope. Through the rest of the year, Hole in the Wall Gang hosts special weekend programs for campers, their families and caregivers, and takes its programs to seriously ill children at seventeen hospitals from New York to Boston.

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

32 East Washington Street, Suite 600
Indianapolis, IN 46204-2919
P 317.231.6770
iso@IndianapolisSymphony.org

Referred By: Tom Battista
Contact: Rita Steinberg, Director of Development
Grant Amount: $5,000

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, one of only 17 full-time orchestras nationwide, performs 150 concerts annually for more than 300,000 people. In addition, the ISO provides innovative educational opportunities for young people in Indianapolis and central Indiana offering 18 educational programs, all linked to Indiana state education standards that reach over 105,000 students annually. Through structured music instruction, the ISO’s Metropolitan Youth Orchestra (MYO), supported by Singing for Change in 2011, engages students in activities that discourage at-risk behaviors and keeps them committed to staying in school and graduating. The Metropolitan Youth Orchestra is a transformative program that uses music to get the student’s attention, but the ultimate goal is personal achievement that leads to future success. MYO fits very well into the life cycle of the ISO and enhances its ability to fulfill this mission: To inspire, entertain, educate, and challenge through innovative programs and symphonic music performed at the highest artistic level.

International Partners in Mission (IPM)

3091 Mayfield Road, Suite 320
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118.1732
P 216.932.4082
Toll Free 866.932.4082
F 216.932.4084
www.ipm.connections.org

Contact: Joseph Cistone
Grant Amount: $56,000.00, $30,000.00

IPM works across borders of faith and culture on behalf of children, women, and youth to create partnerships that build justice, peace, and hope. IPM provides seed money to help small-scale, community-based and democratically governed programs initiate and implement projects by creating personalized partnerships among donors, friends, project coordinators, and participants. Using the original model set forth by its founders, IPM accompanies the materially poor and socially marginalized in their struggle for justice and peace.

Projects are as diverse as earthquake relief to rescuing child-brides, sustainable farming to sewing and art co-ops. IPM partners with over 70 of these community-based organizations worldwide, providing them with organizational, financial, and technical assistance. They take place in the Dominican Republic; El Salvador; Nicaragua; Colombia; India; China; Indonesia; Nepal; Lebanon; Israel; Ohio, Oregon, and Missouri in the US; Kenya; Tanzania; Malawi; and Uganda.

The IPM Family comprises donors, friends, and partner-employees who reflect the rich diversity of the global community while remaining grounded in four core principles: facilitation, global awareness, personalization, and shared partnership. IPM also conducts Immersion Experience programs that offer groups and individuals short-term travel opportunities to learn and share one-on-one with Project Partners.  Through all programs, IPM strives to provide an alternative, effective, and personal way to participate in projects that promote justice, peace, and hope.

Just the Right Attitude (JTRA) (new grantee)

13150 I 10 Service Road
New Orleans, LA 70128
P 504.309.2492
F 504.620.6632
www.jtra.org

Referred By: Sister Jane Remson, O. Carmel
Contact: Debra South Brown, Founder and Executive Director
Grant Amount: $20,000

Debra South, a disabled mother of two, knew what it meant to struggle. She also knew how it felt to "have too much money to receive assistance and not enough money to make ends meet." She was blessed with family and friends who were there for her and her children. Once on her feet financially, Debra and those faithful friends prayed, discussed, and agreed to do something to help the community. Debra started helping other working poor people by distributing bags of groceries from her garage, until neighbors complained. Debra's and her friends' prayers became a reality when they established Just The Right Attitude - believing that anything is possible with just the right attitude.

Just the Right Attitude (JTRA) opened its doors in September 2001 as a food bank, helping feed people in the Greater New Orleans area and some parts of Mississippi. During and after Hurricane Katrina, JTRA was a solid source of food, help, and companionship to scores of evacuees and displaced homeowners. This year its food budget was drastically affected by the need to feed an influx of unemployed fishing industry workers, a group predominantly comprised of legal Vietnamese immigrants. These are boat- and deck-hands who haven't find work since the oil spill occurred. Unlike their employers, who are eligible for compensation from BP, these undocumented workers were left economically stranded by the disaster and still have children and extended family members to feed, house, and clothe. SFC's helped make up the shortfall in the organization's food budget.

Little Kids Rock

632 Pompton Ave., Suite 2
Cedar Grove, NJ 07009
P 973.746.8248
F 973.746.8240
www.littlekidsrock.org

Contact: David Wish, Founder and Executive Director
Grant Amount: $25,000

Little Kids Rock (LKR) is a nonprofit organization that transforms children’s lives by restoring and revitalizing music education in schools. Starting with just one teacher serving 50 students in 1996, LKR has since built a movement of educators who are proactively putting music education back into our nation’s public schools using music that kids love. It currently offers one of the largest, free instrumental music programs in the US public school system.  The momentum that LKR has created on a leveraged, shoestring budget indicates its ability to convert modest investments into a considerable service profile. In keeping with its lean, high-impact approach to service, a New Orleans chapter of LKR is being launched with the help of Singing for Change. It will affect the lives of nearly 1,000 low-income children in approximately 40 schools.

New Orleans, with its rich history and deep commitment to music, has long been a natural partner for Little Kids Rock.  This year, it will train an initial cadre of 24 NOLA public school teachers in the LKR guitar pedagogy, and equip them with free instruments and extensive curricular materials for use in school-based and after-school music classes. 

In addition to the Little Kids Rock New Orleans Chapter Launch, LKR is working closely with the Quincy Jones Musiq Consortium on a collaborative project seeking to ensure that every child in Center City and Treme has access to high-quality, relevant music education.  LKR is thrilled to be active in two distinct, vibrant efforts to restore music education to its rightful place in the lives of New Orleans children.

Mobile Baykeeper

300 Dauphin Street, Suite 200
Mobile, AL 36602
info@mobilebaykeeper.org
P 251.433.4BAY (4229)
F .251.432.8197
or Toll Free 1.888.433.4460

Contact: Casi Calloway, Executive Director and Baykeeper
Grant Amount: $25,000

Mobile Baykeeper provides citizens with a means to protect the beauty, health, and heritage of the Mobile Bay Watershed and coastal Alabama for the sake of our families and our communities. It collaborates with communities gulf-wide to balance a strong economy with the protection of our environment, public health, and quality of life. Its 4,000 strong membership and its volunteer programs help citizens make a positive impact on the future, starting today. Mobile Baykeeper’s priorities in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico include protection of shoreline, ensuring transparency from agencies responsible for monitoring and enforcement, and developing meaningful volunteer opportunities for those interested in helping the region. As it moves forward, Mobile Baykeeper is committed to helping gulf communities take control of the future with partnerships and projects that help restore precious natural resources and local economies.

Operation Home

1145 Six Mile Road
Mt. Pleasant, SC 29466
P 843.853.3211
www.operationhome.org

Contact: Anna Hamilton
Grant Amount: $10,000.00

Founded in 1997, Operation Home’s mission is to provide safety, handicapped access, and dignity to the neediest citizens in the Charleston area. Operation Home provides free emergency home repairs such as roof replacement, wheelchair ramps, plumbing, floor reparations, and other jobs necessary to prevent homelessness and keep the community's most vulnerable citizens in homes that are safe and decent. In 2007, Operation Home assisted over 140 families referred from over 20 different agencies. 35 homes were provided critical home repairs, 60 air conditioning units were provided to families who otherwise would have suffered through a hot, Lowcountry summer without anything to cool their home, and 46 heaters were provided to families who had no way to heat their homes during the coldest days of the winter. Most of these families contained a child or elderly family member. The need for the services that Operation Home provides has not gone away. In 2008 staff and volunteers answered the call of over 150 families in critically unsafe houses from over 25 social service organizations, with the total amount of assistance totaling over $95,000.

Operation Home

1145 Six Mile Road
Mt. Pleasant, SC 29466
P 843.853.3211
www.operationhome.org

Contact: Anna Hamilton, Executive Director
Grant Amount: $10,000

Founded in 1997, Operation Home’s mission is to provide safety, handicapped access, and dignity to the neediest citizens in the Charleston area. Operation Home provides free emergency home repairs such as roof replacement, wheelchair ramps, plumbing, floor reparations, and other jobs necessary to prevent homelessness and keep the community's most vulnerable citizens in homes that are safe and decent. In 2007, Operation Home assisted over 140 families referred from over 20 different agencies. 35 homes were provided critical home repairs, 60 air conditioning units were provided to families who otherwise would have suffered through a hot, Lowcountry summer without anything to cool their home, and 46 heaters were provided to families who had no way to heat their homes during the coldest days of the winter. Most of these families contained a child or elderly family member. The need for the services that Operation Home provides has not gone away. In 2008 staff and volunteers answered the call of over 150 families in critically unsafe houses from over 25 social service organizations, with the total amount of assistance totaling over $95,000.

Pacific Marine Mammal Center

20612 Laguna Canyon Road
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
P 949.494.3050
F 949.494.2802
info@pacificmmc.org

Contact: Melissa Sciacca
Grant Amount: $5,000.00

Pacific Marine Mammal Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of marine mammals stranded along the Orange County coastline and to increasing public awareness of the marine environment through education and research. Since 1971, Pacific Marine Mammal Center has returned thousands of seals and sea lions to the ocean to have a second chance at life. Singing for Change provided funds for the purchase of food, medication, and medical supplies in which to treat ailing marine mammal patients. 2009 has brought the most difficult year in the history of the organization, with over 250 animal strandings to date. At times, PMMC goes through more than 500 lbs of fish a day in order to feeding stranded animals.

"I am proud to be a volunteer at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center. As a volunteer in the education department, I speak to visitors when the come to the Center for the first time as well as those paying follow-up visits. At the Center, we teach two badges for the Girl Scouts the “marine try it” and “fins, flippers and flukes.”

Our marine mammal patients are special and I am honored to be able to teach the public about them. Because our animals are so similar to us, I think it is valuable to explain this to visitors, so that they feel connected to these animals. I feel that it is important to let children know that they, personally, can make a difference as to whether these animals survive and return to the open seas. Everyone can help enable these creatures to remain healthy in the wild for future generations to enjoy. I take our role as guardians of the planet to heart. One person can make a difference. I volunteer with some of the most gifted and amazing people. The Pacific Marine Mammal Center really exemplifies compassion in action." - Christine Lundgren

PMMC IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! Every day from 10AM- 4PM Admission is free, donations are encouraged...

Partners In Health (new grantee)

P.O. Box 845578
Boston, MA 02284-5578
P 617.432.5256
standwithhaiti.org/haiti

Contact: Susan Sayers, Director of Institutional Development
Grant Amount: $10,000

The world is focused as never before on averting millions of preventable deaths among poor people living in the developing world. For the first time, substantial funding is available to treat infectious diseases in impoverished settings. Funding alone, though, won’t be enough. For this massive investment to make a real impact on the twin epidemics of poverty and disease, a comprehensive, community-based approach is crucial. PIH's community-based model has proven successful in delivering effective care both for common conditions like diarrhea, pneumonia, and childbirth that often prove fatal for Haiti’s poor and malnourished, and for complex diseases like HIV and tuberculosis. A key to this success and to the PIH model of care pioneered in Haiti has been training and hiring thousands of accompagnateurs (community health workers) to prevent illness, monitor medical and socioeconomic needs, and deliver quality health care to people living with chronic diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. The PIH® model of care is partnering with poor communities to combat disease and poverty.

Zanmi Lasante (“Partners In Health” in Haitian Kreyol) is PIH’s flagship project – the oldest, largest, most ambitious, and most replicated. The small community clinic that first started treating patients in the village of Cange in 1985, has grown into the Zanmi Lasante (ZL) Sociomedical Complex, featuring a 104-bed, full-service hospital with two operating rooms, adult and pediatric inpatient wards, an infectious disease center (the Thomas J. White Center), an outpatient clinic, a women’s health clinic (Proje Sante Fanm), ophthalmology and general medicine clinics, a laboratory, a pharmaceutical warehouse, a Red Cross blood bank, radiographic services, and a dozen schools. ZL has also expanded its operations to 11 other sites across Haiti’s Central Plateau and beyond. Today, ZL ranks as one of the largest nongovernmental health care providers in Haiti – serving a catchment area of 1.2 million across the Central Plateau and the Lower Artibonite – and employs over 4,000 people, almost all of them Haitian, including doctors, nurses, and community health workers.

When the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, ZL resources were in place to deliver aid. In addition to providing care to the hundreds of thousands who fled to Haiti’s Central Plateau and Artibonite regions, ZL established health outposts at four camps for internally displaced people in Port-au-Prince. ZL also supported the city’s General Hospital (HUEH) by facilitating the placement of volunteer surgeons, physicians and nurses, and by aiding the hospital’s Haitian leadership. In March 2010, PIH/ZL announced a 3-year, $125 million plan to help Haiti build back better.

Peace First

280 Summer Street
Mezzanine Level
Boston, MA 02210
P 617.261.3833, F 617.261.6444
www.peacefirst.org, info@peacefirst.org

Contact: Sara Cofrin, Executive Director
Grant Amount: $10,000

Peace First began as a response to the sky-rocketing youth homicide rates in the early 1990s, as an approach to look at children as problem-solvers, rather than witnesses or victims of their surroundings. Peace First was conceived at Harvard University in 1992 as an annual festival where children gathered to play cooperative games and share their dreams of peace. Student-run until 1996, it became an independent non-profit organization under the leadership of Harvard graduate, Echoing Green fellow and Ashoka fellow Eric D. Dawson. In 2000, with Boston as a flagship site, Peace First began national expansion of its intensive approach to whole-school climate change. It now operates in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York, and receives requests from all over the world.

The organization aims to create a generation of morally engaged young people with the ability and inclination to create positive change in their schools and neighborhoods.  Peace First teaches children the social-emotional skills of cooperation, communication, conflict resolution, and empathy—as well as the skills of civic engagement. The heart of its work is a Pre-K-8 service-learning curriculum taught by AmeriCorps members and young adult volunteers in partnership with the classroom teacher.  This work is supported by intense coaching with principals and lead teachers to deepen their efficacies at supporting academically and emotionally successful young people. 

Peace First has taught over 40,000 students critical conflict resolution skills; created over 2,500 peacemaker projects that improved communities and instilled a sense of civic engagement in students; recruited over 4,000 volunteers who provided 400,000 hours of volunteer teaching service; and trained 2,500 teachers in conflict resolution and classroom management skills. It has seen remarkable results in each school: a 60 percent reduction in violence, but more importantly, a 70-80 percent increase in instances of children breaking up fights, including others, and helping one another—resulting in better schools and better potential for each child in that school.

Points of Light Institute/HandsOn Network

600 Means St, Suite 210
Atlanta, GA 30318
P 404.979.2900
F 404.979.2901
www.handsonnetwork.org

Contact: Paige Moody, Chief Development Officer
Grant Amount: $50,000

Recognizing that citizens along the Gulf Coast are bearing the brunt of one of the nation's worst-ever, man-made environmental disasters, Points of Light Institute has made a commitment to leverage the power of volunteerism to help the region recover from the immediate and long-term impacts of the oil spill. Even though oil has stopped flowing in Gulf waters, continuing support of the people of the region is essential. Singing for Change is helping build the organization's capacity for disaster preparedness and recovery.

In many communities throughout the Gulf region, recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina are ongoing. Now, families with children are struggling to deal with the economic impact of the oil spill. This reality, combined with the fact that specialized skills are required to assist with direct oil remediation, led Points of Light to focus on mobilizing volunteers and service leaders to respond to the human and social impact of these two disasters.

Through several years of experience now in the Gulf region, HandsOn Network is uniquely positioned to handle volunteers who respond to a disaster who have not registered with, or have not previously been trained by, a disaster response agency (dubbed "Spontaneous Unaffiliated Volunteers"). Unpaid volunteers provide about $150 billion in service value to the nation each year.

HandsOn Network’s powerful service community includes 13 HandsOn Action Centers that are currently serving the oil spill-impacted states of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana. These affiliates provide critical social service support and build the sustainability of the region by strengthening the capacity of local nonprofits and helping companies deploy skills-based volunteers more effectively. HandsOn Action Centers train volunteers, manage volunteer reception centers, and lead on-the-ground volunteer activities. Going forward, they will be the main force for a symbolic and demonstrable Gulf Coast Year of Service leading us to the 2011 National Conference in New Orleans and beyond. Points of Light wants to do whatever it can to help build the capacity of the Gulf region and its people to respond to crisis and move forward toward positive social change.

Over the next year, HandsOn Network will recruit and train 10,000 volunteer leaders and mobilize 50,000 volunteers to devote an expected 1 million hours to support the Gulf Region’s environmental and economic recovery. There is a high need in the Gulf Coast community for workforce development and adult education programming, as well as coastal remediation. HandsOn Network will mobilize its volunteer force and prepare community leaders to aid in these efforts. It will increase disaster readiness at HandsOn Action centers nationwide, meet public demand for assistance, and provide leadership in the management of volunteer opportunities in times of disaster. Efforts will also focus on long-term recovery when the first-responders leave.

Points of Light Institute/HandsOn Network (POL/HON)

600 Means St, Suite 210
Atlanta, GA 30318
P 404.979.2900
F 404.979.2901
www.handsonnetwork.org

Contact: Jessica Kirkwood
Grant Amount: $100,000.00

Singing for Change supports a variety of projects under the POL/HON umbrella though most significantly during the years since hurricanes Katrina and Rita, SFC has funded Hands On Gulf Coast. Many years of service since Hurricane Katrina have demonstrated a community need beyond the Gulf Coast, and beyond recovery. Centrally located in Gulfport on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Hands On Gulf Coast is now Hands On Mississippi - still dedicated to meeting the critical needs of communities through volunteerism.

Originally through Hands on Network, work began on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2005 as a direct response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in August of that year. When in 2007 Hands On Network merged with the Points of Light Foundation - creating this country's largest volunteer engagement organization known as POLHON - Hands on Gulf Coast became an affiliate of POLHON while forming its own organization solely focused on Mississippi. With the assistance of POLHON, an aggressive plan was devised that would enable the operation to become a reality in November 2008.

Hands On Gulf Coast, an independent affiliate integrally and permanently a part of the Mississippi community, has grown and expanded to address not only disaster recovery but other critical needs in the Gulf Coast communities. As a result, Hands On Gulf Coast became Hands On Mississippi to encompass its true reach of service and focus. Current program areas include:

• Historic Home Restoration – provides restoration services to homes of historic value.
• Green Space Management – community clean-up, clear walking trails, eradicate invasive species, and preserve the local environment.
• Mentoring and Tutoring – provides mentoring, education enrichment programs, arts, and sports, fitness and recreation programs after school and during the summer.
• Career Training – career development programs to the adults of the community.
• Wildlife Conservation – focuses on preserving the natural habitat and the natural beauty of the Gulf Coast.
• Vulnerable populations – works with local homeless day centers to create a community through direct service, special events, and programming.
• Immigrant populations – provide service to non-English speaking coastal residents to ensure inclusion in coastal events and services
• Service Days – focus on designing and implementing community projects and National Days of Service.

Portland After-School Tennis & Education

16055 SW Walker Road, #439
Beaverton, OR 97006
503-697-0598
www.pastkids.org

Referred By: Mike Ramos
Contact: Danice Brown, Executive Director
Grant Amount: $5,000.00

Over 80% of children in the Portland Public School System receive reduced or free lunches at school, and for many of them, this is the only meal they get every day. Portland After-School Tennis & Education (PAST&E) helps hundreds of kids with their school work, nutrition, and tennis in 10 elementary schools in the Portland Public School System.

Portland After-School Tennis was founded in 1996 by Nancy Osborne, then Schools Director for the USTA/PNW, and Dr. Ernest Hartzog, then Assistant Superintendent of Portland Public Schools, to provide an after-school tennis and education program to underserved children. Over the years, the organization evolved to include summer tennis and reading program. In 2008, PAST&E launched a new program curriculum which emphasized a stronger educational component and program hours were increased broadening the depth and scope of reading, writing, nutrition and life-skills curriculum to 60% of program time while still dedicating 40% to tennis and fitness activities. As a result of this dynamic change in programming, the Board of Directors voted to officially change the organizations name to Portland After-School Tennis & Education in 2008. In 2009, with hard work, PAST&E is proud to announce its new status as a First Serve Chapter. First Serve is an organization whose mission is to provide "educational and recreational programming that challenges and inspires underserved young people who are dedicated to succeed in life." PAST&E shares a similar mission and is excited to begin working with First Serve.

Project Eye-to-Eye

250 W 93rd Street, Suite 17B
New York, NY 10025
P 212.537.4429
F 480.393.5416
projecteyetoeye.org

Referred By: Jane Buffett
Contact: David Flink
Grant Amount: $10,000

On a warm day in 1998 in Providence, Rhode Island, a group of LD/ADHD-labeled college students from Brown University sat in a circle with a group of elementary school students labeled with learning disabilities from Fox Point Elementary. They were a part of a program called Project Eye-To-Eye, a public service project run by and for students with academic labels such as learning disabled (LD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The program had one simple goal: match labeled adults with learning disabilities with labeled elementary school students to act as role models, tutors, and mentors as a means to empower their learning and give them hope for their future.

On that day in 1998, the mentors worked with their mentees on art projects created to facilitate metacognitive development, expression of emotion and creativity, and most importantly self-esteem building. On that day, the group of mentees found hope. Their mentors did as well. The mentors, at the time, were attempting simply to do community service and take their experience of being labeled "different learners" and put it to good use. What they found as members of Project Eye-To-Eye was much more. After a lifetime of being subjected to the language of deficits and abnormalities, the mentors, along with their students, managed to transcend the labels foisted upon them in their past and created a community around shared life experiences and learning styles.

Years later, Project Eye-To-Eye is a national not-for-profit mentoring program changing the lives of thousands of children and young adults across the U.S. Every day it gives "at-risk" students the feeling of empowerment and connection to a community built on understanding and compassion for differences. Project Eye-To-Eye's mission is to improve the life of every person with a learning disability. It fulfills its mission by supporting and growing a network of youth mentoring programs for those with learning differences, and by organizing advocates to support the full inclusion of people with learning disabilities (LD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in all aspects of society.

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Charleston, SC

81 Gadsden Street
Charleston, SC 29401
P 843.723.7957
F 843.722.2204
Barbara@RMHCharleston.org, rmhcharleston.org

Contact: Barbara Bonds, Executive Director
Grant Amount: $1,500

The Ronald McDonald House of Charleston provides a "home away from home" for families of seriously ill children. It began as a 12-bedroom house in 1983 where families stayed while their children were being treated at nearby hospitals. In November 2006 an addition was opened, enabling the facility to serve up to 25 families each night. The Ronald McDonald House eliminates the financial burden of costly hotels and provides a home-like atmosphere where families can lead a life as normal as possible during their time of need. 90% of families have children in intensive care units. 40% of families have children undergoing open heart surgery and another 36% have babies in neonatal intensive care. Over half return for a second treatment or surgery. While the majority of families served are from South Carolina, RMHC has served families from all 50 states and 12 foreign countries. SFC is proud to join with the Margaritaville Store in downtown Charleston in support of this community gem.

Southern Environmental Law Center (new grantee)

201 West Main St., Suite 14
Charlottesville, VA 22902-5065
P 434.977.4090
F 434.977.1483
selc.org

Contact: Annie O'Leary
Grant Amount: $20,000

The Southern Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to address environmental issues of critical importance to the people, communities, and natural resources of the Southeast. Thanks to an impressive 25-year track record of results, SELC has earned a reputation as one of the most effective conservation organizations in the U.S. SELC stands up for the things we all love about the South—clean air, clean water, mountains, forests, the coast, and our rural countryside and community character. Our approach is unique—and successful. SELC works in Congress and state legislatures to inform and create environmental law, with regulatory agencies to implement environmental laws and policies, and in the courts to stop the worst abuses of southern resources and set far-reaching precedents. SELC works collaboratively with more than 100 national, state, and local groups to complement their skills and achieve common conservation goals.

St. Bart's Music Festival

6847 Juniata Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15208
stbartsmusicfestival.org

Referred By: Kino Bachellier
Contact: Frances DeBroff
Grant Amount: $10,000

For the past twenty-seven years in January, the St. Barts Music Festival has presented a series of concerts on its small French Caribbean Island. Each year, depending on the availability of international artists, concerts take the form of chamber music, opera, orchestra, jazz, and dance. This year 60 artists came to the island from Italy, Brazil, Canada, France, and the United States. The venues are small and intimate, so that members of the audience may interact with the musicians. In addition to their many exciting performances, musicians visit island schools to perform and discuss their instruments. Children are bussed to open rehearsals and are prepared in advance by their teachers. This year the Festival brought two music teachers, a violinist and a cellist (specialists in the classroom), to present outreach programs to all island schoolchildren.

Since January 2010, the St. Barts Music Festival's outreach program staff and volunteers have been raising money, instruments, and music materials for the St. Trinity Music School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which was destroyed during the earthquake. The school relies on visiting musicians as its instructors. Preceding the January Music Festival in St. Barts, two musicians (one from France and one from Canada) went to PAP bearing donated music supplies to teach at St. Trinity's, which serves 1,300 students. An instrument repair expert accompanied them, and taught students to repair instruments and provided them with proper tools.

St. Barts Music Festival

6847 Juniata Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15208
stbartsmusicfestival.org

Referred By: Kino Bachellier
Contact: Frances DeBroff
Grant Amount: $10,000.00

For the past twenty-seven years in January, the St. Barts Music Festival has presented a series of concerts on its small French Caribbean Island. Each year, depending on the availability of international artists, concerts take the form of chamber music, opera, orchestra, jazz, and dance. This year 60 artists came to the island from Italy, Brazil, Canada, France, and the United States. The venues are small and intimate, so that members of the audience may interact with the musicians. In addition to their many exciting performances, musicians visit island schools to perform and discuss their instruments. Children are bussed to open rehearsals and are prepared in advance by their teachers. This year the Festival brought two music teachers, a violinist and a cellist (specialists in the classroom), to present outreach programs to all island schoolchildren.

Since January 2010, the St. Barts Music Festival's outreach program staff and volunteers have been raising money, instruments, and music materials for the St. Trinity Music School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which was destroyed during the earthquake. The school relies on visiting musicians as its instructors. Preceding the January Music Festival in St. Barts, two musicians (one from France and one from Canada) went to PAP bearing donated music supplies to teach at St. Trinity's, which serves 1,300 students. An instrument repair expert accompanied them, and taught students to repair instruments and provided them with proper tools.

The Cancer Foundation of the Florida Keys, Inc.

P.O. Box 5816
Key West, FL 33045
P 305.294.7300
info@keyscancer.org

Contact: Lanny Skelly, Chairman, Patient Grants
Grant Amount: $2,408.40

The Cancer Foundation of the Florida Keys is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to assisting qualified Keys cancer patients undergoing chemo and/or radiation with their rent or mortgage and utility expenses.  With no office or staff, volunteers work out of their homes.  The Foundation is funded entirely by donation jars placed in Keys businesses, by individual donations, and by generous contributions from foundations.  The patient load increases monthly and the Foundation is currently assisting 24 patients.  The average monthly cost per patient is $1,000.  The Foundation sponsors a fundraiser annually called "Willy Wonka's Chocolate Festival," held every spring. Everything is chocolate, and attendees get unlimited treats for the price of admission.  Their motto is:  "What we raise stays." 

The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America (new grantee)

386 Park Avenue South, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10016
P 800.932.2423
info@ccfa.org, ccfa.org

Grant Amount: $500.00

The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America is a non-profit, volunteer-driven organization dedicated to finding the cure for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Founded four decades ago, it essentially created the field of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis research. Today, the Foundation funds cutting-edge studies at major medical institutions, nurtures investigators at the early stages of their careers, and finances underdeveloped areas of research. Educational workshops and symposia, together with a scientific journal, Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, enable medical professionals to keep pace with this rapidly growing field. The National Institutes of Health has commended the Foundation for "uniting the research community and strengthening IBD research." SFC made this contribution in memory of Mike Kern, a devoted husband, father, friend, and parrothead from Dayton, OH who passed away in February 2010.

The Refugee Response/REAP (new grantee)

1832 West 25th St., Ste. 2A
Cleveland, OH 44113
P 216.236.3877
refugeeresponse.org

Contact: Paul Neundorfer, Founder
Grant Amount: $10,000

The Refugee Response (TRR) was formed to help refugees adjust to life in Northeast Ohio. Its volunteers work to empower the area's growing newcomer population, particularly those here between three months and five years, by providing opportunities to acquire the skills they need to succeed in their new communities.

Each year 1,300 to 1,900 refugees settle in Ohio. Since 2007, Cuyahoga County has welcomed over 850 refugees from countries including Burma, Bhutan, Somalia, Ukraine, Russia, and Iraq. Refugees enter the U.S. legally, seeking freedom, peace, and opportunity for themselves and their families. After resettlement, they start new lives with limited resources transitioning from their past and the lives they once knew. Through targeted research and extensive involvement within Northeast Ohio’s resettled refugee community, TRR recognizes that newcomers both need and seek assistance with English language, basic cultural orientation, and employment training in order to become self-sufficient, contributing members of their new communities.

TRR is currently engaged in three primary initiatives to achieve these goals. Its Home Tutoring program matches volunteers with members of resettled refugee families, who help with language acquisition, cultural understanding, homework help, and practical skills. Classrooms Connect is an initiative that links students in Cleveland schools to those in refugee camps in Thailand via multimedia tools. REAP, an agricultural training program that employs and trains refugees at the Ohio City Farm, is described below...

The Refugee Empowerment Agricultural Program (REAP), an initiative of the Refugee Response, operates at the Ohio City Farm, the largest contiguous urban farm in the nation. Located on Cleveland's west side, directly adjacent to the historic West Side Market, the Ohio City Farm empowers resettled refugee trainees in Northeast Ohio providing them with employment, education, and training. It also nourishes the community with local food. REAP currently employs fifteen refugee trainees from six countries. Ultimately, REAP will provide trainees with an employable skill set, which will in turn stimulate the region's economic development.

The Walker Foundation (new grantee)

Supporting the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind
355 Cedar Springs Road
Spartanburg, SC 29302-4699
P 864.577.7532
F 864.585.3555

Contact: Katie Rice, Public Information Director
Grant Amount: $2,885.65

The Walker Foundation, a nonprofit organization, was established for the sole purpose of securing resources for the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind. Its fundraising enables the School to ensure that every student has the opportunity to achieve maximum success through high-quality educational programs, outreach services, and partnerships. For 161 years, the SC School for the Deaf and the Blind, an accredited public school, has provided statewide leadership in education and accessibility for individuals who are deaf, blind, or sensory multidisabled. SCSDB provides numerous specialized programs and services including services in local school districts statewide, early invention for infants and toddlers, family and program assistance for students with deaf-blindness, Braille and large print services, sign language interpreting, summer camps for children with a vision and hearing impairment and family conferences. SCSDB continues to level the playing field so that hearing and vision impaired children to have the same opportunities as others. "SCSDB is where every child is a Masterpiece."

Water Missions International (new grantee)

2049 Savannah Hwy., Suite 20A
Charleston, SC 29407
P 843.266.4974
F 843.763.6082
watermissions.org

Contact: Danya Jordan, VP of Development
Grant Amount: $10,000

Water Missions International is an engineering relief and development nonprofit. Its engineers, staff, and volunteers design and provide sustainable, safe water solutions to disaster victims worldwide and people in 40 developing countries. Since 2001, Water Missions International has responded to the world's largest natural disasters, and daily tackles the world’s single biggest cause of illness—lack of safe water and adequate sanitation (U.N. Report, 2005). Water Missions International has received Charity Navigator’s top rating four years in a row. After the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, 115 Living Water(TM) Treatment Systems and erosion chlorinators were installed there, serving more than 200,000 people. Five concrete sanitary pit latrine mold sets were delivered to Haiti, capable of building 15,000 latrines. Nine Living Water (TM) Treatment Systems were also installed in Pakistan, following the devastating flooding there in August.

WINGS for Kids

3347 Rivers Avenue
Charleston, SC 29405

Mailing address:
P.O. Box 71648
North Charleston, SC 29415
P 843.296.1667
F 866.562.8615 (toll free)
info@wingsforkids.org, www.wingsforkids.org

Contact: Bridget Laird
Grant Amount: $10,000.00

Kids growing up in poverty often miss out on life lessons - how to behave well, make good decisions, build healthy relationships. WINGS instills those missing life lessons by weaving a comprehensive social and emotional intelligence education into a fresh and fun after school program. Kids get the life lessons they need to succeed and be happy - and they get a safe place to call home after school.

In 1996 Ginny Deerin started WINGS in Charleston, S.C., to give kids this missing piece of their education. Coming from a business background, Ginny took a results-oriented approach that reaches kids in the elementary school years with cost-effective solutions and strategies that really work.
WINGS is the only U.S. organization focused solely on developing and improving social and emotional intelligence within after school programming. WINGS views the hours after school as a tremendous opportunity to fortify kids with tools they need to succeed against the odds. The carefully constructed, 15-hour-a-week curriculum weaves 30 learning objectives into everyday activities that develop self-awareness, relationship skills, social awareness, self-management, and responsible decision-making.

WINGS strategies and practices are designed to break down the components of social and emotional learning into readily understood skills and exercises so that students become aware, acquire and practice their newfound capabilities – all within a nurturing environment that provides constant encouragement, constructive feedback, and positive reinforcement. Truly making an impact on the lives of kids requires sustained effort – and delivers results that can be measured. This proven track record for quality and effectiveness distinguishes WINGS in the field of youth development and social and emotional intelligence education.

WINGS for Kids

3347 Rivers Avenue
Charleston, SC 29405

Mailing address:
P.O. Box 71648
North Charleston, SC 29415
P 843.296.1667
F 866.562.8615 (toll free)
info@wingsforkids.org, www.wingsforkids.org

Contact: Liz Mester
Grant Amount: $10,000

WINGS is an education program that teaches kids how to behave well, make good decisions and build healthy relationships. It weaves a comprehensive social and emotional learning curriculum into a fresh, fun after school program. Kids get the life lessons they need to succeed and be happy, and they get a safe place to call home after school. Since its beginnings, WINGS has grown to serve more than 1,300 kids. The results-drive organization was founded by Ginny Deerin, a marketing and fundraising executive with the conviction that important life lessons were a missing piece of education. WINGS recruits differently, trains intensively, provides constant feedback and closely monitors outcomes. WINGS delivers results that spell measurable success.