2025 Grant Recipients

ANNOUNCING OUR 2021 GRANT RECIPIENTS

2021 GRANTEE SITE VISIT REPORTS

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.