Foundation Announces Recipients of the Spring 2010 Community Grants Program

The Community Foundation for Kingston & Area's Grants Review Committee is thrilled to announce the recipients of the Spring Grants Session which was held jointly with the Sunnyside Children’s Foundation. A total of $36,610 in grants was awarded, including $15,780 granted from the Sunnyside Children's Foundation with a focus on Children’s mental health and well-being.
The remaining 12 grants, ranging from the Arts and the Environment to Social Services and Youth, were funded by endowment funds and donor-advised funds of the Community Foundation for a total of $20,830.

The grantees received their cheques at a reception on Thursday May 20, 2010 at the Kingston Yacht Club.

Arts & Culture

Grant MacDonald Community Portraits Committee: Grant MacDonald Exhibition
During the 1950s, ‘60s, and 70s, an artist of genius, Grant MacDonald, painted portraits of Kingston families, their wives, husbands, and children. Many of these paintings still hang in the homes of the Kingstonians who commissioned them. This exhibition will enable the community at large to view these paintings for the first time. A DVD with more than 70 portraits will be on sale at the exhibition, and a copy will be donated to the Kingston Arts Council as a permanent record. ($1,650, Tragically Hip Community Fund)

Education & Literacy

Kingston Literacy: RAPP for School Readiness
Kingston Literacy & Skills' Reading and Parents program (RAPP) will be provided to parents in Better Beginnings for Kingston Children’s school readiness program, to help promote and encourage the development of reading, especially in high-risk areas. By providing families with kits, including quality children's books, craft activities, language and reading tips and pencil and paper activities, the organizers hope to engage parents in their role as their children's first and most important teacher. ($1,600, Whig-Standard Literacy Fund, Community Fund)

Limestone Learning Foundation: Nanny's Nook
A comfortable reading nook will be created at Bayridge Public School where a team of parent volunteers (the “Nanny’s”), will read appropriate reading resources to and with the primary students (140 students K-Gr. 3). This project is an extension to the very successful Bayridge take-home, parent-assisted reading program “Pawsing to Read”, inspired by their mascot, a bear.  This reading experience will help with reading self-confidence in the students. ($1,500, Community Fund, Cameron and Laurie Thompson Fund)

Environment

Kingston Field Naturalists: Owl Woods Management Plan
Increasing human use of and impact on Owl Woods on Amherst Island, an internationally recognized Important Bird Area, is creating disturbance to roosting owls and their habitat. An experienced environmental planner will be hired to consult stakeholders and write a management plan to address the threats to owls and their habitat. A management plan based on input and ideas from all the stakeholders and land-owners will provide an agreed-upon direction and guidance to manage the site and find solutions to problems. The local community will benefit from sustainable contact with nature that Owl Woods can uniquely provide. ($2,500, Barton Environmental Fund, Tragically Hip Community Fund, Cameron and Laurie Thompson Fund, Chown Fund)

Health & Social Services

Outreach St. George's Kingston: Lunch By George
OSGK runs a daily morning drop-in program, opening at 9am with coffee and cookies, serving soup at 10am and a hot nutritious meal at 11. They are often dealing with up to 50 of downtown Kingston’s most disadvantaged citizens, who have nowhere to go, and few resources for good food. In the summer, the number of clients served increases considerably as other food providers close. The grant will help to pay for a summer relief coordinator as well as extra food. ($1,000, Tragically Hip Community Fund, Richard Moorehouse Fund)

Kingston Community Roundtable on Poverty Reduction: The Poverty Challenge
The Kingston Community Roundtable on Poverty Reduction's Poverty Challenge asks local high school students to test their assumptions about poverty and experience what it's like to be poor. This annual one-day event builds empathy, understanding and encourages Kingston youth to develop proactive solutions to poverty. The event was very successful again this year, and the organizers will use this grant to develop a manual that can be shared with other communities who would like to hold their own Poverty Challenges. ($1,500 Community Fund)

Almost Home: Linen Upgrade
Almost Home is a charitable organization that provides temporary shelter to families whose children are receiving medical treatment in Kingston area hospitals. The home has 11 family rooms varying in size from two-person rooms to rooms that can accommodate larger families of 6 or 7. For the comfort of the families and some of the patients, Almost Home provides all the linens for the duration of their stay. Their linen inventory has slowly depleted and the grant will help to replenish it. Almost Home is committed to maintaining the highest standards for their families and hospital partners. ($1,500 Tragically Hip Community Fund, Richard Moorehouse Fund)

SIFE SLC: Partners on ICE
SIFE SLC, a group of motivated students at St. Lawrence College, will aid in the building of a 12’x20’ walk-in freezer for the Partners in Mission Foodbank (PIMF) to help them transition through an industry shift towards frozen food. As our PIMF is a hub in the Ontario food bank system, a freezer would allow PIMF to accept frozen donations from the commercial market, and redistribute them to other food banks in the network, or to distribute frozen food to Kingstonians, through PIMF's hamper program, Kingston's meal programs, or in-school meal programs like breakfast clubs. This added capacity to receive frozen foods will help PIMF to better meet its clients’ demand. ($2,500, Richard Moorehouse Fund, Community Fund)

New Leaf Link: NeLL: A Special Initiative for Special Adults
New Leaf Link (NeLL) offers adults with developmental disabilities opportunities for further learning, volunteering, and working within a new non-profit organization in South Frontenac Township. NeLL’s community development project pairs artists, retired teachers, personal trainers, and professionals versed in adaptive technologies with disabled adults to build on individual interests and support entrepreneurial activities. These activities in turn promote the health and wellbeing of disabled individuals while also building a sustainable environment for community inclusion. This grant will support one of NeLL’s programs that provide art education in a variety of mediums that will eventually yield marketable products. ($1,500, Marion Meyer Opportunity Fund)

Recreation

Southern Frontenac Community Services Corporation: Day Away Program for Seniors
Southern Frontenac Community Services, with support from the South East Local Health  Integration Network and the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area, is creating an enhanced day away respite program for seniors. This new program will complement the current program and provide more one-on-one, enhanced care for seniors. The current day away program for the more ambulatory seniors is relocating to the recently acquired and refurbished Harrowsmith Centre and the equipment purchased with this grant will ensure that seniors will receive appropriate and exciting new activities. ($1,500 Richard Moorehouse Fund)

Youth

Kingston Family YMCA: Arbour Heights Child Care Centre
The Kingston Family YMCA is partnering with Belmont Long-term Care to operate a licensed child care centre within Belmont's new long-term care facility, Arbour Heights. The centre will provide care for ten toddlers (18 mo -2.5 yrs) and 16 preschool children (2.5-5 yrs.) The location of this centre will allow for multi-generational programming which will be a positive experience for the residents and children. ($3,000, Sunnyside Children’s Foundation)

Agnes Etherington Art Centre: Art Connect Kingston
Art Connect Kingston is an arts outreach project that will enable more children to participate in professionally-designed art education programs at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, through subsidized visits for classes. Students in grades one to eight will expand their visual literacy and creativity through discussion of original works of art and an art-making project. ($1,280 Community Fund)

HIV/AIDS Regional Services: Kingston Youth PhotoVoice
Someone gives you a camera. You are asked to take photos about your experiences of being young. What kind of pictures would you take? The Youth PhotoVoice Project provides ten lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer (LGBTQ) youth in Kingston with the opportunity to explore their lives through photography. During a series of workshops the young people receive training in basic photography and meet to discuss the meaning of the pictures they have taken. A public exhibit of their photographs highlights their artistic accomplishments and gives voice to their experiences of being an LGBTQ youth in a smaller urban centre. ($5,705 Sunnyside Children’s Foundation)

Limestone Learning Foundation: The Art of Yoga
The Art of Yoga project at “Streetsmart” (the KCVI Community Education Centre – an alternative high school in downtown Kingston) will incorporate rigorous physical exercise, character development tools, artistic expression, and health education to heal, rehabilitate, and empower youth at extreme risk. Each weekly 2-hour session will begin with a strengthening yoga practice and transition into an art experience and discussion as students work with teachers trained in this approach, a yoga instructor, and community artists. ($2,800 Sunnyside Children’s Foundation)

Limestone Learning Foundation: Train your Body -- Train your Brain
Using personal heart-monitors purchased with this grant, Gr. 6/7 students at JR Henderson PS will track their individual fitness performance and improvement on a daily basis following a morning exercise session.  By following their personal progress by logging their own heart rates following physical activity over time, students are more enthusiastically engaged in the fitness activities. The activity and monitoring will take place immediately before a mathematics class and students will also be observed for improved attention and focus in learning, a positive outcome that has been observed in recent research. ($2,800 Community Fund)

Canadian National Institute for the Blind: CNIB Kids to Camp
The CNIB Lake Joseph Centre (Lake Joe) is the only camp of its kind in Ontario. Currently in its 49th year of operation, Lake Joe provides a unique blend of recreation and rehabilitation for people who are blind or partially sighted. Situated on 12.5 acres on Lake Joseph in the magnificent Muskokas, Lake Joe offers a safe, inclusive environment in which young people can develop increased self esteem, self respect, self confidence and daily living skills through participation in recreational and social activities. This grant provides an opportunity for three young people from the Kingston area to attend this camp. ($4,275 Sunnyside Children’s Foundation)