A grant from HCF’s immediate response fund helped support Hamilton’s first Homeless Baseball League.  Organizers say the league helps give the players opportunities to be part of a community, and something to look forward to every week. It also provides individuals who are currently homeless the chance to engage with those who are now housed and witness the positive changes that have happened.

 

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Dec. 2, 2011           

MEDIA RELEASE

Hamilton Community Foundation Grants Nearly Half Million Dollars

Grants support quality of life programming across the city

Hamilton Community Foundation today announced new grants totalling $472,632 to local charities. The 46 grants support a wide range of charitable projects across the community, including the arts, health care, housing, education, the environment and recreation.  The Foundation also announced 15 bursaries that will enable Hamilton high school students who could not otherwise do so, to continue on to post-secondary.

The bulk of the grants are being made from the Edith H. Turner Foundation Fund, which focuses, in part, on literacy and educational success.  One grant will support a life skills and parenting group for young mothers at the Salvation Army’s Grace Haven, a provider of programs for pregnant adolescents and young parents.

“Many of the young women we see have low self-esteem and other issues that negatively affect their self-worth, for example, low education” says JoAnne Davis, Grace Haven’s executive director. “This grant will help us to provide programs that foster self-esteem among these moms, help them develop their parenting skills and ultimately, we hope, to break the multi-generational poverty cycles that are often associated with teen pregnancy.”

The grants announced today include financial assistance for:

• Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra to provide music education activities to children in school.
• A children’s financial literacy program.
• A program to assist social service agencies to train volunteers.
• Transitional housing for women
• A program at McMaster Children’s Hospital that will work with parents of children at high risk for developmental delay.

 “While there are some encouraging signs in Hamilton today, these are still very challenging times for far too many people in our community,” says Matt Goodman, Vice- President, Grants and Community Initiatives.  “One way HCF is working to address these challenges is supporting programs that tackle the underlying issues, such as education, that will improve quality of life for everyone in our city.”

Last year Hamilton Community Foundation made grants of $3.7 million.  Since it was founded in 1954, HCF has made close to $65 million in grants to charities in Hamilton.