$65,000 in grants for local non-profits have been announced by the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Rotary Club Foundation. The Rotary held a virtual meeting Monday to announce the 2020 grant recipients. Foundation President Rick Villa tells WSJM News the grants are supported by a fund established 30 years ago and grown through fundraisers, campaigns, and investments. It’s led to a lot of support for the community.
“Close to a million dollars in grants have been given out, and as you know, when you give someone some money like this, that are good citizens, good non-profits, they’re taking that money and doubling or tripling it, essentially, in their impact to our community,” Villa said.
Villa says the Rotary Foundation looks for projects that will improve health, education, and economic development throughout Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren counties. Be,low is a list of this year’s recipients.
- Berrien County Historical Association – $8,000 to assist covering costs related to the renovation of the 1870s Sheriff’s Residence.
- Berrien Families Plus, Inc. – $10,000 to assist in funding 3 WINS (Work Inspires and Nurtures Success), an innovative restitution program for youthful offenders involved with the Juvenile court in Berrien County.
- Boys & Girls Club of Benton Harbor – $10,000 to support the eLearning Center at the Joel E. Smilow Teen Center which provides access to technology, educational support programming, and Club professionals trained as virtual learning success coaches to area youth.
- Court Appointed Special Advocates – $6,250 to recruit, train, and support 10 additional volunteers who will advocate on behalf of 25-30 new foster children in Berrien County and provide mileage reimbursement to the 37 currently active CASA volunteers who travel over 25,000 miles annually serving children in care.
- Feeding America, West Michigan – $7,750 to fund ten mobile food pantries which will distribute thousands of pounds of nutritious food to communities in Berrien County.
- Mosaic CCDA – $10,000 to provide on-site employment experience to graduates of th eJobs for Life program through one of Mosaic Social Enterprises.
- Joseph Today – $11,000 to support marketing local businesses and to reduce membership fees for businesses in need, allowing them to focus on their missions, their business, their futures, and conserve their already constrained resources.
- SBC Benevolent Ministries, Inc. – $2,000 to support purchase of technology needed to assist defendants referred by Berrien County Trial Court for Zoom arraignments to reduce backlog of arraigned cases.
