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| | Giving Opportunities | Dear Charlottesville Area Donors,
The CACF staff are always learning about interesting projects for which nonprofit organizations are seeking funding.
The list below, “Giving Opportunities,” is an attempt to make the broader public aware of these projects. It is continually updated and has proven to be a very effective way to help nonprofit organizations in our region. If you have questions about any of the projects described below, please contact the nonprofit organization directly, or call the CACF office.�
Best regards,
Kevin O’Halloran
Director of Donor Relations
Charlottesville Area Community Foundation |
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| | Current CACF Giving Opportunities |
First Book is a national nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books. The primary goal of First Book is to work with existing literacy programs to distribute new books to children who, for economic reasons, have little or no access to books. Last year First Book distributed 7 million books to hundreds of thousands of children in more than 700 communities nationwide.
In the years since First Book's founding, educators and policymakers have become acutely aware of the need to develop strong community-based resource programs for low-income children, which is precisely the focus of First Book at the local level. One recent report funded by the Packard and MacArthur Foundations found that the average child growing up in a middle class family has been exposed to 1,000 to 1,700 hours of one-on-one picture book reading before entering school. The average child growing up in a low-income family, however, has only been exposed to 25 hours of one-on-one reading during this same time period.
At the local level, First Book leverages the strength of its entrepreneurial Local Advisory Board model to spark social change. By providing community-based literacy programs with an ongoing supply of new books, First Book plays a critical role in enhancing the quality of preschool and after-school programs nationwide. A literacy program in St. Louis serving 50 low-income children, for example, could receive 50 books each month for a year from First Book-St. Louis. The books would then be chosen by program leaders working directly with the children, incorporated into program lessons, and given to the children to take home and keep.
All books distributed by First Book are provided at no cost to the child or program. With the support of First Book, these programs are able-often for the first time-to develop a curriculum around the books they select, share these books with participating children, and enable these children to share the magic of their new books with siblings and other family members at home.
In Charlottesville and the surrounding counties, First Book distributes books through the First Book Local Advisory Board at WHTJ Charlottesville PBS. If you have questions about First Book, please contact the CACF office or D.J. Crotteau at 434-295-7671,...
The Lane Babe Ruth League of Charlottesville will not be able to enter the 2009 season without first repairing and restoring the failing lighting system at the field on McIntire Road. Each year, over the past few years the Lane Babe Ruth League has had more than 300 13-15 year old boys and girls participate in the program.
The mission of the BD Basketball School is to provide a serious environment for learning the game of basketball and, in so doing, teaching the essential life values necessary to succeed off the court. BD Basketball’s special mission is to use basketball to teach disadvantaged young people athletic skills and character development. The program attempts to provide the highest level of instruction and the deepest sense of commitment to young people’s needs.
Since its inception the Books Behind Bars project of the non-profit Quest Institute, Inc. has given over one million books to people in the Virginia prisons and jails.
Computers4Kids is the region’s only after-school technology mentoring program. Designed to give low-income youth the computer training and support they need to get ahead academically and professionally, Computers4Kids provides middle and high school youth with a state-of-the-art after-school computer lab, technology workshops, adult one-on-one mentoring, home computers, and a year of free internet access…all free of charge.
The Charlottesville Festival of Cultures, organized by the Charlottesville City Schools Adult Learning Center, is a response to the richness and challenges of a diverse population that is permeating our schools, workplaces, and the fabric of daily life. The Festival celebrates the linguistic and cultural diversity in our community, increases awareness of that diversity in a respectful environment, and provides an opportunity for building a bridge of communication between newcomers and established residents in the area. In addition, the Festival showcases and promotes the contributions of newcomers to our community. As one visitor commented at last year’s event, “This is the only event I have ever attended locally that has a truly diverse attendance.” To achieve its mission, the Festival includes cultural exhibits, performances (music, dance, and storytelling), hands-on activities, vendors, and information booths hosted by social service and educational agencies that serve our diverse population.
The CCS Adult Learning Center must raise funds each year in order to host this community-building event which takes place the second Saturday in May in Lee Park (downtown Charlottesville). For more information about the Festival and how you can support it, please contact Debbie Tuler at 245-2819 or Debra.Tuler@ccs.k12.va.us. The Festival website is...
The mission of Fluvanna County’s Families Learning Together is to break the cycle of intergenerational illiteracy by providing undereducated parents with the skills and opportunities to develop their potential and reach desired goals for themselves and their children. Families Learning Together offers parents a comprehensive program of basic education, parenting skills, and involvement in their children’s schools, as well as intergenerational activities designed to encourage reading in the home. The premise of this program is that the best way to help disadvantaged youth is to help their parents create an environment where learning is valued and individual effort is acknowledged.
CACF welcomes proposals for the Community Endowment, the Foundation’s unrestricted fund, twice a year from nonprofit organizations working to improve the quality of life in the Charlottesville area. On September 8, 2008, the CACF Governing Board approved $144,500 in grants. Due to limited funds, CACF is not always able to fully fund grant proposals. Please consider recommending a gift to one or more of the organizations below or, if you rather, a gift to CACF to help build the Community Endowment.
The University of Virginia has been approached by the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company to be a research site for a major commission from the Ravinia Festival to create an evening-length work about Abraham Lincoln for a September, 2009 premiere in Chicago, celebrating Lincoln’s 200th birthday.
In development for national distribution by VFH Radio at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, BackStory with the American History Guys is a call-in radio show with interviews and special features. With its highly informed and sometimes irreverent approach, BackStory was designed to make history and historians accessible, fun, and relevant to a non-specialist audience. Each week on the show, the genial, gregarious, and always thought-provoking hosts—who happen to be good friends—grab a topic from the headlines and drill down into America’s past. These nationally and internationally renowned historians—Ed Ayers, Brian Balogh, and Peter Onuf—provide a comprehensive and passionate understanding of American history. Ed—who is President and Professor of History at the University of Richmond—is a scholar of 19th-century U.S. history and the former Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History at the University of Virginia and dean of its College of Arts & Sciences; Brian, who focuses on 20th-century America, is Associate Professor of History at UVA and Chair of the Governing America in a Global Era Program at the Miller Center of Public Affairs; and Peter, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History, also at UVA, is an expert on the federal period.
Season One of the BackStory test and development series was broadcast by three Virginia public radio stations and received additional carriage from seven stations around the country. Topics of the inaugural season, about which listeners and stations have been enthusiastic, have included controversial wars, environmental crises, traditional family values, debt, the Fourth of July, punishment, transportation, racial purity, leisure, and outsiders in America—all viewed from the standpoint of history. During 2008, the VFH is producing two test seasons of the program—summer and fall—respectively comprised of ten and eight episodes; in 2009 BackStory will inaugurate its first full year of programming, producing 28 new episodes. Funding has come in the form of a grant of $130,000 from the David A. Harrison Fund for the President’s Initiatives at the University of Virginia, a $35,000 equipment acquisition grant from the Perry Foundation, and ten individual cash and in-kind contributions of $87,050. BackStory, which is under review for U.S. distribution by Public Radio International, is seeking support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, approaching the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and has other requests pending. The program is in need of bridging funding to support production through the spring of 2009. This is an extraordinary opportunity for Charlottesville-Albemarle donors to support the birth and development of a locally based, highly innovative history radio program that will reflect positively on the cultural life of our community, while addressing an important national public need. For further information, please contact Executive Producer Andrew Wyndham at the VFH—Phone: 434-924-6894; Email: awyndham@virginia.edu; Address: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 145 Ednam Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22903.
The Jefferson Area Board of Aging (JABA) is seeking funding to produce a video designed to put a human face on the deeply intertwined organizational, community, governmental and societal issues brought on by the aging population. These problems have been exacerbated by the current economic down-turn, the rising cost of fuel and energy, and the shortage of locally grown and produced foods, creating elements of a “perfect storm” for seniors. At the center of this storm is the isolated elder, in need of support but unable to reach out and obtain it. Money for food is short, heating and cooling have become an unaffordable luxury, and help does not seem possible.
In 1999, Paul Reisler, of the folk band Trapezoid, went into a Rappahannock County, Virginia elementary school with a plan for teaching kids how to write songs. Instead, it was the children who actually taught him how to write children’s music. He discovered that kids’ boundless imaginations and uninhibited thinking make them the greatest song co-writers. Reisler also discovered that songwriting is a wonderful way to teach teamwork and collaboration, enhance self-esteem and creativity, and teach a love for music and the arts.
In early 2008, a group of central Virginia and Shenandoah Valley community members invited a discussion with ROSMY (Richmond Organization for Sexual Minority Youth) about extending services into its Blue Ridge communities, particularly the communities of Charlottesville-Albemarle, and Staunton-Waynesboro-Augusta.
The landmark MacArthur Foundation Studies on Aging found that the number one issue facing our aging population is the need to keep seniors independent. They further found the key ingredients to achieve this are for seniors to retain physical and mental wellness and to stay involved and productive for social, spiritual and emotional wellness. Our Senior Center is the community’s one stop shop for successful aging by providing programs to meet each of these needs.
The Madison-Greene Humane Society’s (MGHS) mission is to rescue and heal abandoned cats in Greene and Madison Counties, and to spay and neuter cats and dogs from these two greatly underserved areas in order to reduce the number of companion animals killed, or abandoned to die, each year. They are extremely proud to be a no-kill organization.
The Youth Learning Academy is a volunteer-driven after school program working with disadvantaged young people and teaching them skills used in the building and automotive trades. YLA is working on several exciting projects and is actively seeking funding for the three outlined below.
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