announcing our 2021 grant recipients
inspiration Grants
Inspiration Grants do not have a specific focus, thereby inspiring nonprofits to identify and address our community’s most pressing needs.
New Morning Youth & Family Services
newmorningyfs.org
Program: Queer Youth Advocacy Project
Amount Awarded: $26,000
Program Description: Providing early mental health support to youth who are struggling, is an absolutely critical component to their successful development as human beings. With this said, research indicates that LGBTQ+ youth are almost six times more likely to attempt suicide AND experience homelessness than their heteronormative counterparts. These same youth also complain of peer-harassment, severe anxiety, depressive symptoms, identity dysphoria, dissociation, strong inclinations toward substance use, feelings of extreme isolation and more. This project will enable New Morning to establish a multi-pronged program specifically geared toward this cross-section of our county’s most at-risk youth population. The program will not only support NM in re-establishing its long-standing LGBTQ+ Youth Support Group (via virtual platform), but it will also support our agency in providing the El Dorado County region with up-to-date, population-specific education and support resources for LGBTQ+ youth. This program will maintain and strengthen our culturally-informed LGBTQ+ therapeutic and case management services, allow us to continue providing safe emergency shelter for these youth, and will allow us to strengthen collaborative efforts with our incredible community partners in working to keep the LGBTQ+ youth of El Dorado County safe.
Snowline Hospice of El Dorado County
snowlinehospice.org
Program: A Nurse-Led, Home-Based Palliative Care for patients with Advanced Dementia
Amount Awarded: $26,000
Program Description: The goal of this pilot program is to focus on the unique needs of dementia patients and their families living in rural areas. By providing specialized in-home care, dementia patients are ensured a higher quality of life including the option to remain in their most sacred place, their home. Most home-based palliative programs focus primarily on patients with three diagnoses, Cancer, COPD, and Cardiac disease; few provide care that recognizes the unique needs of patients and caregivers living with dementia.
Utilizing a full interdisciplinary team that includes physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, medical social workers, spiritual care providers, and home health aides, this program will demonstrate that personalized home-based palliative care will significantly improve the patient care experience and clinical outcomes for patients with dementia and their families.
Through nurse and social worker-led assessments, our program will use a holistic approach to better serve patients and families living with this dementia. Our program will provide regular visits between nurses and families to discuss the disease and its burdens, so the families have an improved understanding of the patient’s disease trajectory. With better understanding, families will be able to complete advanced care planning, including POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) forms. Through 24/7 access to nurses, development of symptom management action plans patients will have fewer symptoms that need to be managed, families will demonstrate reduced utilization of emergency departments, there will be fewer hospitalizations, reduced caregiver burden, and increased utilization of supportive community resources.
Acorn Grants
Acorn Grants (3 total awarded in 2020): for any new western slope nonprofit or a nonprofit that has never received a grant from the Women’s Fund.
Housing El Dorado
housingeldorado.org
Project: Technology - Creating a Bridge to Self-Sufficiency for the County's Vulnerable
Amount Awarded: $8,000
Program Description: Enabling self-sufficiency is a key to lifting our county's vulnerable into a position they can be housed, employed, and productive persons in our community. Access to case management and the tools it unlocks, such as identification, transportation health care, resume, job applications, and more is already a heavy burden on our existing systems for the 600+ homeless on the western slope. Recently steeped in many years of experience from organizations such as Hangtown/Community Haven, Interfaith Nomadic Shelter, and Coalition for the Homeless and Affordable Housing, and supported by the structure of the El Dorado Community Foundation, Upper Room Dining Hall, and Green Valley Church, the non-profit Housing El Dorado has been formed. In this grant Housing El Dorado seeks to decrease this gap by not only procuring the technology to enable case management, but make it more accessible through mobile platforms in their Pathways Project winter lodging and follow on programming. By utilizing laptops, which double as tablets, hot spots, and mobile printer clients' needs can be addressed in nearly any location. The funds in this grant to purchase technology enabling mobile case management will create a bridge to self-sufficiency for many of the county's vulnerable.
Imagination Theater
imaginationtheater.net
Project: Empowering Youth through Performing Arts
Amount Awarded: $8,000
Program Description: The purpose of this program is to develop creativity and leadership skills through performing arts for teens by providing opportunities to learn about how to produce, direct and participate in live stage performances and extend the learning through opportunities for youth to then actually produce and direct a performance. A series of Youth Director Workshops, provided at no cost to the participants, will build skills and confidence in all aspects of Community Theater with a focus on how to turn an artistic vision into a performance reality. Participants will gain a deeper understanding about producing and participating in Community Theater through hands-on workshopping in an educational, creative and artistic learning environment. Series of workshops to include: Introduction to Theater; Planning and Organizing a Production; Stage Management; Set, Lighting and Costume Design; Auditions & Casting; Production Schedules & Rehearsals; Publicity and Marketing; etc. Upon completion of the series of Youth Director Workshops, participants can then apply to direct a special project through Imagination Theater’s Youth Empowerment through Performing Arts Mini Grant Program. This program will be available to teens throughout El Dorado County and will be advertised through local Middle and High Schools.
Mj’s Project
mjsproject.org
Project: Homeless and at-risk teen/young adult assistance
Amount Awarded: $8,000
Program Description: We provide basic life essentials for struggling teens otherwise going without and suffering in silence. We provide feminine hygiene, full size personal hygiene, food to eat outside of school, holiday food, clothes, brand new school shoes, school supplies, gas cards, lice treatment, laundry soap, furniture, appliances, individual personal needs, prom attire, Christmas and mentoring. We also supply school closets with deep freezers and fridges for food, as well as washers and dryers for homeless students to wash.
Impact Grants
Impact Grants (3 total awarded in 2020): for nonprofit organizations offering direct impacts on the western slope of El Dorado County. This includes but is not limited to human services, such as those pertaining to mental or physical health, education, youth development, or services to children, families or seniors, arts, community beautification, animal welfare, or community development.
El Dorado County Office of Education
edcoe.org
Program: McKinney-Vento Urgent Needs Fund
Amount Awarded: $8,000
Program Description: McKinney-Vento students are those whose families can offer no, "...fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence..." for their children. This childhood adversity is challenging enough independent of other life challenges that occur for all people at some time or another. The difference being that McKinney-Vento youth often have living situations that do not allow them the luxury of time; time to wait for the resources that their caregivers might otherwise be able to access on their behalf. While resources are available for a wide variety of needs for these youth, the expediency of access to funds is not always feasible when the need to address unforeseen and unexpected needs is urgent or does not fall into a "typical" needs category. The McKinney-Vento Urgent Needs Fund has arisen from a series of events that provide powerful examples of the need to be able to respond quickly and efficiently to this "invisible" population's needs as they arise. In this way minimizing the interruptions to education and social experiences while at the same time mitigating the effects of what at times, might otherwise be traumatic experiences for children who are already in the throes of the trauma of being without a home of their own.
MORE, Mother Lode Rehabilitation Enterprises, Inc.
morerehab.org
Program: Feeding El Dorado County
Amount Awarded: $8,000
Program Description: Food . . . a basic human need. And one that goes unmet for many in our community. Mother Lode Rehabilitation Enterprises is pleased to partner with the Food Bank to provide this basic need to many who would otherwise go hungry by being a food distribution center. With MORE’s recent return to our newly renovated building that includes a commercial kitchen, plans for expanding services to the community include providing seniors another option for a healthful midday meal, as well as being an emergency food distribution center in case of a disaster. Such essential services need a back-up plan in case of a power outage, which our community has experienced with the PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoffs numerous times over the past year, and very likely to occur in the case of a major disaster. Therefore, a large-capacity generator was installed to keep our walk-in refrigerator/freezer and kitchen fully functional, even without power. MORE’s new building gives us the ability to expand our services of feeding those in need, but funding for a generator was not part of the community support we received. A grant from Women’s Fund El Dorado will help fund this critical component of the project.
Hands 4 Hope, Youth Making a Difference
hands4hopeyouth.org
Project: Food Insecurity In Our Community: Hands4Hope Youth-Led Emergency Food Pantry to Assist Students, Families, and Individuals
Amount Awarded: $8,000
Program Description: Hands4Hope - Youth Making A Difference is requesting $8,000 to provide food to insecure students, families, and individuals on the Western Slope through our new Hands4Hope Emergency Food Pantry. Hands4Hope is partnering with El Dorado County Office of Education (EDCOE), Placerville Union School District (PUSD), El Dorado County SNAP-Ed Nutrition Education, and Placer Food Bank to create and run this pantry, as well as identify those most in need of food assistance. The food pantry will be youth run, with guidance provided by representatives from our identified community partners. Food insecurity has increased significantly within our community due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Hands4Hope is working to fill the gap by training young people in skills that take ideas, such as this food pantry, and turning them into action; youth gain skills while helping fill unmet community needs that positively impact the lives of others. Women’s Fund dollars will directly provide food for 3,000+ meals, impacting 1,200 food insecure students and individuals. It will also provide training and mentorship for 10 youth, giving them tools and a deeper understanding of food insecurity to successfully manage this emergency food pantry with compassion.
