Beaches Community Fund awards $143,000 to local nonprofits

In its second year of grantmaking, the Beaches Community Fund awarded $143,000 to 11 local nonprofit organizations, bringing its two-year giving total to more than $350,000 to aid Beaches residents in need.

Organizations receiving support from the fund in 2017 include BEAM, Mission House, Sulzbacher Clinic, Read USA, the Florida Institute for Education at UNF and the Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida. Grants to those organizations were made as part of the Beaches Community Fund commitment to strengthen Beaches nonprofit organizations as well as impact early childhood education and access to transportation.

In addition, the fund held a competitive process for Beaches-area nonprofits to submit pressing needs for funding. As part of that open application process, the Beaches Community Fund awarded:

• $25,000 to Child Guidance Center for start-up costs for a Beaches location
• $10,000 to St. John the Baptist Catholic Church for its Emergency Assistance Ministry
• $20,000 to We Care’s Beaches Health & Wellness Collaboration to add a Community Health Worker for follow-up and home visits
• $25,000 to Mission House to add a part-time housing director in its Rapid Re-Housing program
• $10,000 to Girls Scouts of Gateway Council to create a Community Development Troop serving 100 girls from low-income families at the Beaches

An initiative of The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, the Beaches Community Fund is a collective giving circle of like-minded philanthropists who strive to address basic human service issues in the area east of the Intracoastal Waterway from Mayport to Guana. While anyone can contribute to the fund, those donors who wish to be directly involved with the fund’s grantmaking decisions are asked for a multi-year commitment of $10,000 per year, per family. Staff members from The Community Foundation work closely with the group to establish priorities, research grant opportunities and manage the grantmaking functions. Grants are announced in May of each year.

For more information, visit  www.jaxcf.org/learn/beaches-community-fund or contact Joanne E. Cohen at jcohen@jaxcf.org or (904) 356-4483.