Dozens of organizations around the CSRA received an early Christmas gift by way of the Community Foundation for the CSRA.
The Community Foundation released a list of its Community Grants Award recipients for 2022 on Friday, Dec. 5. The list contained the award amounts — more than $626,000 in all — and the organizations’ purpose for each individual award.
For the full list of award recipients, scroll through the PDF below. Click the arrows at the bottom left of the image to review the full list.
CFWhat is the Community Foundation? That’s a question I asked myself. It sounded sort of non-descript to me, so I did some research.
This foundation has been around for more than 25 years and was established when a group of business leaders came together to improve the community through collective philanthropy. Today, its grant funding is distributed through multiple channels including community grants, the Harrisburg Literacy Initiative and multiple scholarships. It also works with local grant-making funds such as Women in Philanthropy, Mary Warren Fund and the St. Joseph Foundation.
The organization is built on three main tenets: cultivating generosity, strengthening non-profits and engaging the community.
If I read this list a year ago, it wouldn’t have meant that much to me, to be honest. However, through serving as the business editor at The Augusta Press for the last year, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know many of these organizations in a personal way.
The list was 50 organizations deep, and there are multiple organizations that have been featured in stories in this newspaper.
MORE: Apparo Academy Expanding to Better Serve CSRA Children
I spoke to Jennifer Jones, director of Apparo Academy, after I read through the list. She just happened to be on the way back from the event the foundation held to celebrate the recipients.
“We were delighted to receive the grant,” she said. “What we wrote the grant for were tuition subsidies so that we can allow any child to go to school whether their parents can afford it or not.”
Jones reminded me that the school subsidizes 40% of the tuition for children at the school, and writing grants is a key factor in how they are able to do that.
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Apparo Academy recently secured funding to break ground on a second building for the school, which serves both typically-developed and developmentally-delayed children. The building will be completed by Fall of 2022 according to the latest estimates.
I also reached out to Erick Montgomery of Historic Augusta, Inc.
Montgomery said the funds they received from the foundation will go toward their operating costs.
“We are delighted to get the grant,” he said. “I know there is less money to go around than is needed. Ourselves and other non-profits have not been able to have the same number of fundraising events or they’ve had to be scaled back due to the pandemic. So, it’s nice to have extra sources of funding to help make up for that.”
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Historic Augusta advocates for historic preservation as a significant economic development tool and
provides technical assistance to property owners seeking to rehabilitate historic buildings and applying for incentive programs such as state and federal certified rehabilitation tax credits, per the press release from the Community Foundation.
As I scrolled through the list, I was encouraged by all the names I recognized and know personally of how they help the community from advocacy to education to homelessness assistance and aid.
I’ve learned so much about how a city works in the last year, and it really does take the efforts and time and money of the entire city to build something great. The city, I believe, has come a long way over the past few years, and I can tell you without a doubt that there are so many who still care about making Augusta the best place it can be.
Tyler Strong is the Business Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at tyler@theaugustapress.com
