The Service League awarded $30,000 in Community Impact Grants to ten non-profits in Cherokee County. Due to the success of the League’s fundraisers, the League was able to support other non-profit organizations in the community whose missions align with the work of the League.
Grant applications were opened in early spring. The League received far more applications than funding unavailable. Recipients were scored by the Grants committee using a rubric which prioritized projects that support children’s basic needs, health or development.
The recipients of the 2022-2023 Community Impact Grants are:
Love Like Reed plans to use the funds to provide ongoing suicide prevention counseling for children in the Cherokee County School District. Unfortunately this is an area where the need has increased greatly over the past few years, and the foundation was relieved to have extra funds to support this cause.
Hidden Acres Animal Sanctuary intends to take the funds and put them towards one-half of their scholarship goals for their Youth Empowering Summer Camp. The funds will enable children who otherwise might not be able to afford summer camp.
Cherokee Youth Foundation will use the funds to provide access to athletics and summer camps for children at Cherokee High School and other Title I schools. The coordinator of those programs shared how important this funding is to enable those students to develop skills and experiences that they might otherwise not have available due to financial constraints. Unfortunately, he is seeing an increased need for funding for many children.
Ferst Readers Cherokee Action Team will use the funds to cover the cost of their upcoming event in June where they will distribute books to hundreds of children. Ferst Readers is working to bring the group active again in Cherokee County. The funding for their event is a key step in getting the books into the hands of children and increase literacy for children from birth to age 5.
Must Ministries requested funding to help single mothers with childcare and transportation costs. As Kendall Jones shared, when you are a mother with a sick child and unable to transport the child to get medical care, it’s a scary situation. The grant funding will be used to help with that as well as help with daycare so mothers can work and earn income to support their family long term.
Bethesda Community Clinic will use the grant funding to provide mobile medical services for families who can not afford traditional treatment. Their mobile treatment van will feature the League’s logo as one of their supporters.
Homeless Coalition of Cherokee County plans to use the grant funding to provide long term housing (three months) to a family with school aged children in Cherokee County along with skills and training to help that family achieve long term housing stability. To quote one of their board members, they serve as a runway to help families get off the ground for long term housing stability.
Forever Fed will use the funding to provide groceries to families in Cherokee County through their mobile food distributions.
Camp Gideon will utilize the grant funding to provide camp tuition for six children who are either foster children or children in single parent households with a financial need in Cherokee County.
4H will provide camp tuition for two young children to attend 4H camp this summer.
