GRANTS AWARDED
2018 Human Services Grant Award Recipients
On Tuesday, September 11, 2018, Women United in Philanthropy (WUP) awarded $60,000 in grants, $30,000 each to two local non-profits serving women and children in Charlottesville and surrounding counties. The recipients were announced at the 2018 Human Services Grant Award Luncheon. Including these grants, WUP has awarded over $500,000 to local organizations.
“We are very excited to present grants to the Building Goodness Foundation and International Neighbors,” said Jennifer Lehman, WUP’s Steering Committee Chair. “These grants from Women United in Philanthropy will provide healthcare to refugee families in our community, build a local playground for a budding Head Start program, and more. All of this is possible through the generosity of WUP members and the power of collective giving.”
All WUP grants are funded through membership, and the 2019 WUP membership drive has just begun. Individual Membership starts at just $100, with Corporate and Underwriter opportunities available. For more information about Women United in Philanthropy, membership, and the grant process, visit www.WomenUnitedCville.org
2017: $25,000 to African American Teaching Fellows
Increasing diversity and multicultural awareness in the local public school systems is the mission of African American Teaching Fellows (AATF). To help achieve this, AATF is using their $25,000 Women United grant to provide college tuition assistance to five African American student fellows in exchange for a commitment to teaching in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area after graduation for the same number of years for which they received funding. Fellows are also given professional support and guidance on leadership development, as well as opportunities geared to connecting the fellows to our community.
2017: $25,000 to The Women’s Initiative
Ingrid Ramos, LPC, Bienestar & Resilience Programs Director
The Women’s Initiative (TWI) is using their $25,000 Women United grant for the operation of critical mental health services to 3,200 women through its core programming. Women served come from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds; many have been the victims of abuse, suffer from trauma, and face a variety of challenges such as the death of a family member, divorce, poverty, and post-traumatic stress disorder. TWI offers mental health counseling, social support, education and outreach to those needing help coping with depression, anxiety and trauma through individual and group therapies.
2017: $10,000 to Georgia’s Healing House
Georgia’s Healing House (GHH), a program of Georgia’s Friends, serves women during their initial stages of recovery from alcohol and drug dependency by providing a safe place to live, an individualized treatment plan, individual mentorship, and support as women reenter the workplace. In the first two years, 42 women resided at GHH, all of whom remained free of drugs and alcohol during their stay. Seventeen successfully completed the program and 12 are still receiving care. There is no other supervised supportive residential program in the Charlottesville area for women in early recovery from addiction. The Women United award supports the operation of the house.
2016: $20,000 to Piedmont Housing Alliance
Nutrition and Community at Friendship Court: Friendship Court, an affordable housing community of 150 very low income households, is managed by Piedmont Housing Alliance (PHA), which offers an after school program, complete with snacks, for children who are residents. The previous source of the snacks is no longer able to provide the food. Our Women United grant will bridge funding of $20,000 for a year while they complete the process of qualifying for a USDA program that would supply snacks. PHA will provide 30-40 children with healthy, locally sourced snacks five days a week for the ten months that school is in session. The grant money will pay for both the food and three hours of staff time per week to obtain and serve the food.
The group of approximately 100 children who will benefit from the grant are aged 3 to 18 years old, 93% of whom live in female-headed households, and have a median family income of $11,000 per year. The residents are predominately African American.