We are thrilled to announce the awarding of our first 12 grants of 2024. Each of these grants represents not just financial support, but also a deep appreciation and belief in the transformative work our grantees undertake every day. As we celebrate this initial group of partnerships, we look forward to expanding our family of grantees throughout the remainder of this year. Additional grantees will be added to this page as the year progresses.
Awarded Winter 2024
Be The Change Charleston
Be the Change Charleston is dedicated to empowering individuals with disabilities through community connection and employment opportunities. A grant was awarded for their Empowerment Through Employment Program. This program is a free, highly individualized program, providing a coach to individuals with disabilities who helps them identify and achieve goals around job readiness skills, employment skills, and life skills.
Boys and Girls Club of Anne Arundel
The mission of the Boys and Girls Club of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County is to inspire and enable all young people, especially those who are most in need, to reach their full potential as productive, responsible, and caring citizens. A grant was awarded for security cameras. The cameras will replace some outdated equipment and also be placed in their six vehicles. The security cameras will help to add a sense of safety and peace of mind to the parents and guardians of the students they serve.
Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating
Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating (CRAB) brings the therapeutic benefits of sailing on the Chesapeake Bay and the freedom it provides to people with disabilities, recovering warriors, and youth from underserved communities at no cost to them. A grant was awarded to sponsor the 52 group sails planned for the 2024 season. Their experienced volunteer Skippers and Crew take patients, clients, students, caregivers, and staff from partnering community groups out on the water.
Gigi's Playhouse Annapolis
Gigi’s Annapolis is part of a national network of Gigi’s Playhouse locations with a mission to change the way the world views Down syndrome and to send a global message of acceptance for all. Their team delivers free educational, therapeutic-based, and career development programs for individuals with Down syndrome, their families, and the community. The grant from Phillips Charitable Foundation will help cover operational needs including their Adult Career Programs.
Hero Dogs
We met Hero Dog Cassie in 2022 when she was a small puppy. Soon after, we made the decision to sponsor her training to become a service or therapy dog. Hero Dogs improves the quality of life of our nation’s heroes and enhances the services of community organizations by placing assistance dogs with customized training and lifetime support. Service dogs are placed with veterans of the U.S. military and first-responders with disabilities. The recent grant represents the final installment of Cassies’s rigorous training and preparation. We’ve enjoyed following her progress and are excited to find out where and with whom she will be placed.
Hour Children
Hour Children’s mission is to help incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and their children successfully rejoin the community, reunify with their families, and build healthy, independent and secure lives. A grant was awarded to cover the costs of Metro Cards to be used by the women they serve. The Metro Cards will enable the women to access job fairs, attend internships, and navigate the city as they seek to build an independent life.
Light House
The mission of The Light House is to rebuild lives with compassion by providing shelter and services to prevent homelessness and empower people as they transition toward employment, housing, and self-sufficiency. The grant to Light House will be used for their workforce development programs including the training programs at The Light House Bistro.
Nontraditional Employment for Women
Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW) recruits, trains, and places women in careers in the skilled construction, utility, and maintenance trades, helping women achieve economic independence and a secure future. A grant was awarded for an advertising and outreach campaign to reach populations that would benefit from the workforce development programs at NEW.
Seeds 4 Success
Seeds 4 Success serves children growing up in low-income Annapolis neighborhoods who disproportionately face the barriers of poverty, early experiences with trauma, housing instability, food scarcity, and transportation access. Children enter their programs reading at least two grade levels behind. The grant will help expand and improve programs with the goals of improving literacy and math outcomes, increasing enrollment in their Pre-K and Kindergarten age groups, and providing additional training to caregivers.
STAIR
Start the Adventure in Reading (STAIR) promotes equity through literacy by partnering second graders reading below grade level with volunteers who work with them one-on-one to build their self-confidence and improve their reading skills. Children are identified and recommended by the public school reading specialists, and written permission from parents is given for them to attend the STAIR program at no cost to their families. The grant will be used for operational needs related to their mission.
The Reading Team
The Reading Team, a Harlem-based nonprofit organization, helps children in New York City’s underserved neighborhoods become strong readers and develop the skills and habits that will support their success in school and in life. A grant was awarded for operational programming expenses of their after-school program. The program serves 100 children in Grades K-5, ages 5-11, from 15 neighborhood elementary schools.
Xavier Society for the Blind
Xavier Society provides the Word of God and other spiritual and inspirational material in braille and audio, to blind or visually impaired persons. They continually explore ways to make that material more accessible and available to the widest possible audience of those in need. A grant was awarded for the production of books and the Sunday Mass Propers in braille. Braille reading materials are transcribed by Xavier’s certified Library of Congress transcriber.
