What would it look like if the art and sport of snow skiing, and snowboarding, were safe, compatible sports, providing environmentally friendly and physically rewarding outdoor winter experiences for all? What would it be like if the slopes became safer to ski and board, imagine if there were less injuries, and no deaths on the slopes.

WriterHouse is establishing an annual Fellowship program for emerging writers. Beginning in January 2011 (or whenever funding is established), unpublished writers without Masters of Fine Arts degrees in Creative Writing or any related field will be invited to apply for a one-year fellowship.

The Worth Your Wait program has reached over 6,000 middle and high students through Family Life Education classes each year since it was awarded a federal Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) grant in 2005. The program teaches a positive youth development approach with a focus on whole person health, and risk avoidance skills and behaviors. Abstinence-until-marriage sex education is primary prevention and was strongly endorsed as the best health strategy for upholding the highest standard of health for our youth in all school systems by the American College of Pediatricians as published in Jan 2010.

PACEM coordinates available space in congregations and 3,000 volunteers each winter to provide affordable shelter for the homeless in our city.  PACEM also offers advocacy - helping individuals move beyond our shelters and achieve greater independence.

MACAA has been helping families out of poverty in the Charlottesville and surrounding area since 1965. MACAA offers a variety of initiatives and programs that educate and empower individuals and move them towards self-sufficiency and independent and productive lives.

Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline Council (GSVSC) has developed special programming to lead girls into careers in math, science, and technology.

Hospice House was designed to provide safe, skilled, compassionate care in a warm, homelike setting for hospice patients who cannot remain at home during their final weeks or months of life. For these patients, Hospice House is a place of refuge and support where they are treated with dignity and kept comfortable, alert, and pain free.

U.Va.’s Community Relations Office started Day in the Life (DITL), an outreach program supplying tutors and mentors for the area’s most under-served students.

To combat childhood obesity, connect kids with wholesome foods, create a passion in kids that will translate to other areas of their lives, teach life skills and improve personal interaction with other kids, introduce disadvantaged kids to the sport for a lifetime and create happy, healthy and active kids in central Virginia. That’s what QuickStart Tennis of Central Virginia does!

The Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary (RWS) was founded in 2004 with a mission to:
* Provide care for injured and orphaned wildlife while they are being prepared for release back into the wild;
* Inform our fellow citizens about what to do when they find an injured or orphaned wild animal, and who to contact for help with the animal; and,
* Educate the citizens of Central Virginia about the habitats and needs of native wildlife.

 HFH is seeking a lead donor (or donors) to help build one to two multi-family buildings at Sunrise.  In addition to large grants, Habitat relies predominantly on smaller donations that aid their core mission of building homes in partnership with deserving partner families.

The North Branch School community had to face the unthinkable in November when word reached them that one of their former students, 13-year-old Naomi Scherr, and her father, Alan, were victims of the violence that rocked Mumbai in November 2008.

The Charlottesville Police Department Foundation (www.cvillepolicefoundation.org) seeks a local funding partner to help purchase a new dog for the department. The CPDF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit group of independent citizens formed to help the Charlottesville Police Department achieve its strategic goals. In addition to its Training, Housing, and Awards Dinner programs, the CPDF occasionally underwrites strategically important items that are reasonably beyond the reach of the City budget or fall outside budgeting cycles.

The Adult Learning Center serves over 850 adults annually through GED and ESL classes and GED Testing. This year, we have endeavored to have books for students in every class. Some students, such as newly arrived refugees and the unemployed, can not afford the $20 book fee. For this reason, we have started a book scholarship fund for these individuals.

Charlottesville Community Bikes’ (CCB) mission is to improve the well being and community life in the Charlottesville area through education, community organizing, working with low-income youth, and promoting environmentally sustainable transportation.

The Bridging the Gap Program provides financial aid for such essential “medically necessary” equipment and services, and these items often become the key factor governing whether a person with progressed MS can continue to live in his or her home, or whether they must move into an assisted living facility.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (July 14, 2009) –The Center for Nonprofit Excellence (CNE) announced today the latest list of sponsors for its new, signature board training program, the Board Development Academy, as well as an extended application deadline.

TJACH’s mission is to end homelessness by ensuring a sufficient supply of permanent housing and supportive services for those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. TJACH’s main activities will be coordination, planning, research, advocacy, fundraising, data collection and analysis, convening work groups and serving as the Continuum of Care entity. TJACH will identify and implement strategies to end homelessness, including the strategies in the Community Plan to End Homelessness. TJACH will manage and provide operational oversight for the Haven at First and Market (formerly known as the First Street Church Project), a dynamic, multi-purpose community space that features centralized resources for the hungry, disadvantaged and homeless.

To present the legacy of James Madison as Father of the U.S. Constitution, architect of the Bill of Rights, and fourth President of the United States, The Montpelier Foundation was established in 1999, and during the last decade, it has restored Montpelier, Madison’s lifelong home, to its appearance during James and Dolley Madison’s time and has transformed the property into a national treasure. Visitation is rapidly increasing and is anticipated to exceed 100,000 annual visitors by the end of 2009. Private contributions are essential for the Center’s programs and provide scholarships to the majority of its participants, ensuring that America’s teachers, police officers, and elected officials are offered opportunities to enrich and deepen their understanding and commitment to the Constitution.

On August 1, 2009, local residents will enjoy the Eleventh Annual Westhaven Community Day, in the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s oldest neighborhood. This yearly event was initially intended to encourage residents to get to know each other better. The celebration now embraces a much broader vision of community, connecting neighbors to each other and the wider community. Please consider making a tax-free donation to support this important event.

For five years a Red Hill Elementary outdoor performance space has been placed by teachers and parents at the top of a wish list, for the purpose of dramas, readings and assemblies. For the last two years, the Parent Teacher Organization and students have worked hard to accomplish this community and school facility and need some final financial help. The stage is near completion, and Red Hill Elementary only needs $3,500 more to complete the basics, and $4,000 in addition to that to put in electrical service, speakers and lighting system. A gift from a donor advisor will successfully complete the necessary parts of this project in the next month, in time for the June graduation.

Better World Betty is a local non-profit organization whose primary mission is to make environmentally-conscious daily living choices easy, fun and accessible to the community. The site offers innovative, yet practical tools for green living: an online directory of local businesses, an events calendar, search tool for hard to recycle items, a Betty blog. This approach, which has gained wide-spread community support, encourages more sustainable living and promotes protection of our natural resources.

Performers Exchange Project (PEP) requests funding for the development of an original performance that will be premiered in collaboration with Live Arts in December 2009.

Light House Studio is seeking funding for the Home Again Documentary Workshop with refugees from the International Rescue Committee. In this video workshop, 5-8 refugee teens will tell their personal stories in carefully crafted video diaries. Through a series of in-class exercises and at-home assignments, students craft videos that document their own lives, their family stories, as well as their hobbies and interests. These new Virginians, who come from places as diverse as Zaire, Zambia, Afghanistan and Bosnia will not only learn basic filmmaking techniques, they will find a voice in their new community. This 100% scholarship workshop, led by professional filmmakers, will run for 9 weeks in the Fall of 2009.

The Bridge Ministry, an independent 501(c)(3) serving men and families in central Virginia for more than twelve years, has taken major steps to provide our own support through a professionally staffed vocational center that includes a state-of-the-art auto body shop and a manufacturing facility. While these businesses are growing, we are looking for a few people to stand beside us through this critical transition as we seek to establish greater financial independence and stability. Read More…

The Oakland Museum is planning an event to mark Hurricane Camille’s 40th anniversary on August 20, 2009. In just eight hours, the storm drenched parts of Nelson County with 28 inches of rain. The resulting floods, rain-induced landslides, and property damage indicated that this event was the worst natural disaster ever to strike the state of Virginia, where 125 people lost their lives or were not found.

The group’s mission is to educate the public regarding alternatives and solutions to foreclosures, using the collective strength of its members. Many local and federal agencies offer programs to help homeowners in distress, but there is no central clearinghouse locally to disseminate the available options and to keep up with the constantly changing landscape

Each year, the Music Resource Center provides full scholarships for approximately 100 Charlottesville students who are free or reduced lunch eligible. These students typically have economic hardship that would prevent them from paying even the most nominal fee to the Music Resource Center. Most of these students live in city neighborhoods where there is a high incidence of public assistance cases, a preponderance of single-parent homes, and signs of low academic achievement (for example, less than 40% of students passed a math Standard-of-Learning test).

The Women’s Initiative seeks funding to support its Stress Management for Teachers program. This program will bring a minimum of 6 workshops to more than 240 teachers and administrators in 2009. Teachers and other front-line providers such as nurses and social workers are under a tremendous amount of daily stress. If left untreated, this stress can result in anxiety, depression, heart disease and diabetes. Workshops give teachers the opportunity to learn concrete stress management strategies that they can incorporate into their daily routine. And when teachers are healthier… the students benefit too! Stress reduction training has been proven in numerous studies to improve employee productivity, reduce absenteeism, decrease fatigue, reduce burnout, and increase job satisfaction. Please donate today and help The Women’s Initiative bring these valuable, lifelong skills to the hardworking public school teachers in our community.

Despite the best efforts of the CHS Yearbook staff to sell ads to control prices, a yearbook for the 2008-09 school year costs $54. This price puts yearbooks well beyond the reach of many students at CHS. What do these students do? One CHS science teacher notes: "I know the cost has been prohibitive for so many of our kids. I see them at the end of the year walking around with stapled-together sheets of construction paper to get signatures.”

A local author is seeking funds for the design and printing of a pocket-sized book to help those undergoing cancer treatments or seeking to recover from other serious illnesses. The author is an accomplished writer who has been the beneficiary of the caregivers at the University of Virginia’s Cancer Center. A year ago, he was diagnosed with a stage IV case of large B cell Lymphoma. Now his cancer is in remission, and he has a new lease on life.

The Local Food Hub is a non-profit organization that offers local food purchasing, processing, wholesale and direct distribution, warehousing and essential services to the Thomas Jefferson Planning District to address the growing demand for local foods and support expansion of local agriculture.

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.  

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.