Community Foundation Invests $108,000 in the Midlands
January 22, 2010
COLUMBIA, SC – January 22, 2010 – Central Carolina Community Foundation announces the investment of $108,000 through 11 impact grants awarded to nonprofit organizations in the Midlands. These are the first impact grants awarded since the Foundation shifted its competitive grantmaking to support innovative programs focused on reducing the high-school dropout rate, preventing homelessness and increasing the literacy rate in our community.
One-third of our state’s high school students do not graduate on time. To help combat this, the Community Foundation awarded three grants totaling $29,600 to organizations working in middle and/or high schools to reduce the dropout rate. City Year Columbia’s Whole School, Whole Child Initiative at Gibbes Middle School concentrates on individual aspects such as academics, attendance, attitude and behavior to improve students as a whole. Palmetto Project’s Challenge Day South Carolina program helps high-school students develop leadership and life skills. The Yes I Can Runway program of Project Life: Positeen provides an alternative learning environment for students while on suspension from their schools.
South Carolina has the 3rd highest adult illiteracy rate in the United States. Six grants totaling $58,400 were awarded to organizations for programs that help increase reading and writing proficiency and application of these skills in a variety of disciplines or contexts. Three of these grants went to early literacy intervention programs that assist our community’s youngest children. The Columbia Museum of Art’s Reading Readiness Through Art program supplements Language Arts curriculum in 4-K through 1st grade classrooms in Richland County. Gilbert Primary School’s Imagination Library provides books directly to the homes of children, up to age five, in the Gilbert community. And, the Reach Out and Read program makes literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric primary care.
ETV’s OneplaceSC provides internet-based curriculum training for teachers and allows them to access online educational resources all in one place. The Save the Children Federation received two grants for their in-school and afterschool literacy programming which helps students read at or above grade level. The program will be offered in Bethune-Bowman Elementary School in Orangeburg County and Manning Elementary in Clarendon County.
Richland and Lexington counties account for 22% of our state’s homeless population. The Foundation’s final two grants totaling $20,000 were awarded to organizations that coordinate efforts and provide services to prevent homelessness. Harvest Hope Food Bank received a grant to expand its mobile food pantry which transports food and related items to people living in South Carolina’s rural communities who do not have transportation to visit an emergency pantry. Epworth Children’s Home was awarded funding to implement a new, comprehensive management system. Epworth provides group residential care, counseling and related services to families and children in South Carolina.
Central Carolina Community Foundation is a nonprofit organization serving 11 counties in the Midlands by distributing grants and scholarships and linking the resources of donors, nonprofits and area leaders to communities in need. For more information about the Foundation, visit www.yourfoundation.org or call 803.254.5601.
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