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Grants Awarded

July 5, 2011


The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland awarded more than $1.3 million in grants for the first and second quarters to support homeless housing initiatives, expand food programs for Cleveland children and for seed money for a new community newspaper.

Included in those awards was $100,000 in grants that went to eight women religious organizations under the Saint Ann Legacy grants that honor the Saint Ann Hospital that provided maternity and infant care in Cleveland for more than 100 years.

Saint Ann grants include $15,000 to Community Re-Entry which works with women who have been in jail break the cycle of incarceration; $15,000 to Millcreek Children’s Center in Youngstown, a preschool that works to ensure low income children are ready for kindergarten; and $18,000 for Joseph’s Home, which gives homeless men discharged from Cleveland area hospitals but still have medical needs a place to recover and supportive services to help find them homes.

The Sisters of Charity Foundation also awarded $25,000 to the Campus District to start-up a local newspaper, the Campus District Observer. The first edition of the free monthly newspaper is expected to be published in late July. 

Other grants include:
  • Children’s Hunger Alliance was awarded $56,040 for its Feeding Hungry Minds and Bodies program in  the Central Neighborhood.
  • St. Vincent Charity Medical Center was awarded $56,781 for its Building Healthy Communities program that has programs such as Garden Boyz, a local market garden that Central Neighborhood boys grow and sell produce, a junior and senior "Chef" program for kids to learn about healthy food and hot to cook it and other neighborhood programs.
  • Beech Brook was awarded $32,000 for the continuation of Parents Assisting Marion Sterling Students, which works with 6th to 8th grad students at the school to increase parent involvement and increase students' academic achievement through enrichment activities.
  • Enterprise Community Partners Inc., was awarded $75,000 for the Housing First Initiative, a collaboration of foundations, government agencies and others, that are working to build or renovate 1,000 apartments in Cleveland to get people off the streets and out of emergency homeless shelters. The newest apartment building in the Housing First Initiative is under construction on Euclid Avenue near East 75 Street. Supportive housing couples permanent housing with social services, including job training and substance abuse programs for people facing complex challenges.

·       Boy Scouts of America – Greater Cleveland Council was awarded $39,868 to continue a scouting program for boys at Marion Sterling and Carl & Louis Stokes Central Academy.

·       The Cleveland Foundation was awarded $35,900 for an employee training program for the Green City Growers Cooperation to engage and educate Central neighborhood residents about the greenhouse, horticulture, hydroponics, and potential employment at the greenhouse when it opens in 2012. 



Sept. 17, 2010

The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland awarded more than $900,000 in third quarter grant aimed at reducing education disparities, improving health literacy, and helping the work of women religious (Sisters). Nearly one third of the total awards - $393,451 - went to organizations working to end homelessness in Greater Cleveland by increasing supportive housing options for vulnerable residents.
 
The YWCA received a grant of up to $75,000 toward the development of its new Independence Place for young women aging out of foster care and are in need of homes. Residents at Independence Place, which is being developed on the second floor of the YWCA administration build, will have access to all the YWCA’s services, including a child care center.
Independence Place wall be able to house 22 young women and seven children when it opens by January 2011. Up to 200 teens turn 18 and age out of the foster system each year in Cuyahoga County.
“We have clearly identified our interest in supporting housing first approaches to preventing or quickly ending homelessness and our grant awards reflect that,” said Leslie Strnisha, program officer for Housing.  “We are aligned with a national movement that homelessness can be solved.
“We have enough research to support the notion that all homeless persons or families are ready for housing and in fact will do just as well or better in receiving services at home, rather than serving them while homeless,” Strnisha said. “Therefore the approach to ending homelessness should always be housing first.”
Included in the total was the Foundation’s annual $150,000 in Good Samaritan grants awarded to 29 local agencies and organizations which help struggling residents with basic needs, such as food, bus tickets and emergency medical supplies.
The Foundation’s Good Samaritan grant program, named after the biblical parable calling us to help others in need, awards organizations up $10,000. The number of requests, while down slightly from 2009, indicated the tough economic times and the struggles of local nonprofits to deal meet the needs of area residents.
 
In its role as a resource for Catholic women religious, the Foundation awarded $146,000 to support vital Sister-led or Sister-founded health and human service ministries under its program commemorating the work of the historic Saint Ann Foundation, which was dedicated to supporting women, children and youth and the ministries of women religious for 32 years. In 2006, the Saint Ann Foundation – the first hospital conversion foundation in the country - merged with the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland.
Saint Ann Legacy grantees include the Thea Bowman Center, a neighborhood center in Cleveland’s Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, which received a $20,000 grant for its adult literacy pilot project. The Secretariat for Parish Life and Development received $10,000 for its volunteer program that provides basic needs to people incarcerated.
 
June 18, 2010
 
The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland awarded six second-quarter grants totaling $170,710 for community efforts, health literacy and religious communities.
 
The grants, approved by the board on June 18, 2010, were awarded to:
Hispanic Round table of Cleveland ($15,000) for programming efforts for the upcoming Hispanic Convention (El Convencion Hispana 2010)
 
ideastream ($15,000) towards expanding the Cleveland public radio station’s health programming
 
Cleveland Department of Public Health’s MomsFirst program ($57,710) to continue and expand the “Baby Basics Initiative” that serves high-risk pregnant women and adolescents
 
Project: LEARN ($37,500) for implementing and expanding a program at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center aimed at improving communication with patients
 
Conference of Religious Leadership ($20,000) to create a local exhibit on Sisters in Northeast Ohio to accompany the Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America exhibit at the Maltz Museum of Jewish History in Beachwood
 
Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina ($25,500) to co-sponsor events of the Collaboration for Ministry Initiative including its annual gathering of all women religious in South Carolina

For your information: 
The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland has issued new grant guidelines that support the direction of our new strategic plan. The plan identifies reducing disparities in health and education in Cleveland's Central Neighborhood, as well as reducing homelessness through supportive housing as key components to building strong families, stable neighborhoods, and relieving poverty.