Over $300,000 Donated to Charities in Monogram Communities
The Monogram Loves Kids Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Monogram Foods, announces today that seventy organizations are the recipients of 2018 Foundation grants. A committee of team members at the each of the six Monogram communities divided a portion of a total of over $300,000 between the charities. The initiatives funded by each grant are as follows:
Boston:
Boston Children’s Hospital – Funds will be used to support the Hale Family Center. The Center provides a full range of logistical, informational, and emotional supports for families. This is where families turn for everything from a temporary roof over their heads to emergency funds for medicines to training on medical procedures they’ll need to perform when their child comes home. The Center offers wellness programs to help parents take care of themselves so they can be stronger for their children.
The Home for Little Wanderers – This grant helps to defray the costs of the Permanency Initiative, an effort by The Home for Little Wanderers to establish for each child in our residential, intensive foster care and transitional age youth programs a permanent connection with a caring, responsible adult.
Merrimack Valley YMCA – Monies given will support the access to healthy and delicious foods for those in need. The Merrimack Valley YMCA’s Food Program goal is to increase access to healthy foods for children, teens and families in need.
Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center – Funds will support the enhancement of the BCNC’s arts curriculum in the Acorn Center for Early Education and Care. This enrichment maximizes the children’s cognitive, social/emotional, and physical development, preparing them to enter kindergarten while meeting or exceeding developmental benchmarks.
Thrive Support and Advocacy – This grant will support Thrive’s Kids’ Club, an out-of-school time program for children and teens (ages 6-16) living with intellectual and developmental challenges, including those on the autism spectrum. Kids’ Club provides a safe environment where children and teens can be themselves, find their strengths, and have opportunities to shine, while building self-esteem and social skills.
Rosie’s Place – Rosie’s Place serves 300 women and their children every day. The grant from the Monogram Loves Kids Foundation will support the purchase of food for Rosie’s Place’s critical food programs for poor and homeless women and their children.
Bristol:
The Farm Place – Funds will be used to construct three buildings: First, the “Lodge” – a place for court ordered visits, family visitations, and therapeutic interactions to take place in a safe and separate environment. Second, an emergency residential home – where children taken from their home day or night, can be housed for 24 to 72 hours while adequate foster care can be arranged. Lastly, a barn – for animals that will be available for the children, professional counselors, and parents to use in therapy.
iCaleb and Company – This grant helps to pay for every child in northern Indiana diagnosed with cancer to receive an iPad. The iPad allows the child to Facetime with friends and family during hospital stays or when the child is too at risk to be in contact with other people.
LoveWay – Love Way is a volunteer driven therapeutic riding facility that offers riders that have been diagnosed with physical, cognitive, or emotional disability. Funds will provide scholarships for those that cannot afford to pay due to additional costs such as therapies, medications, and special mechanical apparatuses.
LOGAN Community Resources – Funds will help provide LOGAN Autism Services to those families with an autistic child in St. Joseph County and nearby communities who needs to secure the therapy needed for success in the social and academic worlds.
ADEC – Funds will allow students from low-income families to participate in after school care and summer camps with the aim to grow students physically, educationally, and socially, focusing on artistic and recreational outlets.
Five Star Life – This grant will fund the afterschool program that provides over 8000 middle school students with the tools and resources they need to be successful in life and to be assets in their community.
Partnership for America’s Youth – With these monies, Partnership for America’s Youth will purchase and fit out equipment trailer to supplement current trailer as it is too small to accommodate all the children and staff and allow the programming to expand to over 75 children. The funds will also provide financial support for 30+ children from low income families to attend summer camps that will assist in personal development and training needs.
Elkhart Education Foundation – These funds will upgrade the libraries of Elkhart Community Schools and allow them to become more accessible online. This will allow the role of the library to become less about housing books and more about connecting learning and constructing knowledge.
The Salvation Army – Funds given will initiate the culinary arts program, which will create the knowledge and tools that can put excitement into food choices.
Chandler:
Pipestone County Food Shelf – Funds will be used to support the Christmas Care program. Christmas Care ensures that Pipestone County children in need each receive a large and small age-appropriate toy and families in need receive a traditional holiday meal tote, a family game, a quilt/blanket, and hope for a brighter future during the holiday season.
Marshall Food 4 Kids – Marshall Food4Kids is a weekend snack bag program for students Headstart through Grade 4 in the Marshall Minnesota Public School System to assist families who are food insecure in support of better nutrition over the weekend. This grant will allow the food assistance program to expand to 150 more children in grades 5 – 8.
Child Care & Nutrition – This organization will use the grant funds to purchase the food that supplies the weekly prepackaged meals that are sent home with children from Ivanhoe, Hendricks, and Lake Benton schools in Lincoln County, MN.
St. Paul Lutheran Church Preschool – Funds will help provide this church preschool program with new and safe playground equipment.
Comunidad Cristiana de Worthington – Monies given will enable this church community to expand their childcare facilities and renovate existing facilities.
Rock Ranch – This grant will fund scholarships for students to spend time after school learning how to ride and train horses.
Southwest Central Service Cooperative – Grant money will support Camp Aspire, a day camp for students in Pipestone County and surrounding communities. The grant money received will help support student attendance for families that are unable to afford camp.
Luverne Backpack Program – This program provides at-risk children with nutritious, easy-to-prepare foods for the weekends until school and access to the meal programs resumes. At the end of each week the food is packaged and distributed in descript bags for the children to carry home.
Luverne Child Guide – Funds will help Luverne Child Guide connect students to extra-curricular activities in grades K-5. It is a program for all students with an emphasis on pre-at-risk and high-risk students. They are trying to prevent students from “falling through the cracks” and are helping these children to become more successful.
Southwestern Minnesota Opportunity Council – These monies will support local bilingual families by purchasing books in the families’ primary language. This organization strongly encourages families to use and keep their home language active with their children through speaking and reading.
Harlan:
Harlan Community Library – The Harlan Library will bring in professional artists, entertainers, musicians, and writers for their monthly Family Nights. Family Nights are both educational and recreational. The monies requested through this grant will provide the necessary funding to cover the fees of the visiting artists.
Time for Tots Early Learning Center – Time for Tots Early Learning Center is the only non-profit DHS licensed childcare center in Harlan. Time for Tots serves 111 children on school days, offering child care from 5AM to 6PM and meeting the needs of the working families in our community. Funds will cover professional development for teachers, new curriculum, and classroom equipment.
St. Rose of Lima School – This organization will use the grant funds to build up classroom technology through the purchase of Chromebooks.
Shelby County 4-H Endowment – School’s Out is a day long program offered to youth grades 2-6 on one no school day per month throughout the school year. With the grant money, they will continue to offer this program for the 2018-19 school year and purchase a workbench for wood working projects, Lego kits for learning simple machines, video camera/green screen to learn video production, along with a field trip to a museum, working windmill and a tour of the local Monogram plant.
Iowa Community Kitchen – Monies given will enable this organization to provide food for children and families in need.
Shelby County Chris A. Myrtue Memorial Hospital – This grant will fund a community-based teen health fair. The teen health fair will address topics particularly relevant to the health and safety of our adolescent population. Topics covered will include the health impact of tobacco and alcohol, safety risks associated with impaired or distracted driving, health benefits of physical activity and healthy eating, stress-busting strategies for mental wellness, and personal safety education for parents and teens.
City of Harlan – The City of Harlan is planning to commence a four-year upgrade to our J.J. Jensen Baseball and Softball complex, consisting of four little league diamonds, one high school softball diamond, and one high school baseball diamond. The funding will be applied towards construction of new handicap accessible restrooms in the little league complex.
Tori’s Angels Foundation – This program creates opportunities for community members across Central and Southwest Iowa to make a difference in the lives of infants, children and adolescents with life-threatening conditions. The funds given will aid in covering travel, meals, transportation, lodging and co-pays for the families served.
Civil Air Patrol Cadet Program – The goal of this organization is to provide accessibility for the development of youth air patrol cadets as well as training including flight simulation. Funds received would be used to purchase computer equipment and simulation gear at an estimated cost of $5,500 for a dual user set up.
Friends of Harlan City Parks – The purpose of these funds is to construct a new playground at J.J. Jensen Park, which will allow children who are attending the ball games but not participating in them to have a source of activity and entertainment.
Avoca Betterment Association – The funds will help construct a youth archery complex at Edginton Memorial Park in Avoca, IA for the local program known as the East Pottawattamie County Hotshots 4-H group.
Martinsville:
United Way of Henry County – Funds given will support the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in Martinsville and Henry County. The requested grant would allow approximately hundreds of children to participate in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library for a year, providing thousands of age-appropriate books to children throughout the community.
Weekend Meal Coalition for Gretna and Mt. Airy – This grant will purchase meals for students to take home over the weekend when they don’t have access to meals at school.
HopeTree Family Services – Monies will support a welding course currently being created at HopeTree Academy. HopeTree Academy has a strong focus on vocational instruction. The program will provide entry-level training and hands-on experience that will help the students succeed in a post-secondary level of education in welding.
Boys and Girls Club of the Blue Ridge – This organization has collaborated with a local martial arts academy to provide students with the physical training and mental discipline that the practice of martial arts requires. Funding would cover some of the cost associated with that partnership.
Grace Network of Martinsville and Henry County – The funds will purchase basic hygiene products for under-resourced and impoverished families in the Martinsville community
Danville Speech and Hearing Center – This grant will provide funding for children to receive the speech-language therapy services they need. Many parents cannot afford speech-language therapy due to lack of coverage by insurance or due to high co-pays and deductibles.
First United Methodist Church – This grant will provide meals to hungry children during school breaks over the holidays.
The Community Fellowship – The funds will purchase backpacks, shoes, and school supplies for over 2,000 under-resourced students.
Piedmont Community Services/CHILL – CHILL is a youth task force in Martinsville and Henry County whose members pledge to live a drug-free lifestyle and make positive choices. This grant would provide funding for CHILL to host Red Ribbon Week at their high schools. Red Ribbon Week encourages high school students to maintain a drug-free lifestyle.
Memphis:
Church Health Center – Funds given will purchase new curriculum on child health and wellness that will be sustained over a long period of time.
A New Beginning – This grant will provide Foster Parent and Family Advocacy training curriculum for adults who want to become foster parents to children whose families are struggling but who also want to be able to reunite the children with their biological families if possible.
Agape Child & Family Service – Families in Transition (FIT) nationally recognized model, serves homeless families in Memphis, primarily those fleeing from domestic violence. The funding will assist families in providing housing, work force development, childcare as well as the most basic of assistance, up to and including food as support mechanisms for families to move towards self-sufficiency.
Harwood Center – The funds will enhance Harwood’s Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) program for children with autism by increasing the number of children served, reducing out of pocket expenses to families, and securing revenue needed for growing our ABA staff.
Memphis Child Advocacy Center – The funds will sustain access to life-changing therapies by supporting transportation to and from appointments for children receiving services at the Memphis Child Advocacy Center.
Neighborhood Christian Centers – This grant will provide funding for the Learning with Lunch, a program designed to meet the physical needs (nutrition) and academic needs of elementary-aged children living in Section 8 Housing Developments.
Palmer Home for Children– The funds will be applied to the operational budget to cover food expenses for the entire campus for an economic initiative where the children learn how to run the house food budget for a month.
Girls Inc. – Monies given will be used to support the Girls Inc. Youth Farm. The Youth Farm provides girls the opportunity to grow personally and receive support in their academic lives and career goals.
STREETS Ministries – Funding will go toward the middle and high school Pathways program at STREETS Ministries. Specifically, it will fund the “Learning Lab” costs, which include topic-specific tutors, online diagnostics to assess students pre- and post-program participation, snacks, and incentives.
Revolutions Bicycle Cooperation – This grant will allow Revolutions to offer a Bicycle Safety Program in two pilot schools. The Bicycle Safety Program combines programming, staff support, equipment, and volunteers to get each school’s entire 4th grade riding bicycles safely and confidently.
Stand For Children – Funds will aid with the implementation of the Freshman Success Network (FSN) in Shelby County Schools and the Achievement School District in Memphis. The money will support training the school-based teams and running the parent workshops, which are the primary drivers of the project’s success.
Plover:
Veteran’s Memorial Park – Funds given will help refurbish the facilities and sustain the recreational programs offered at the park
Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Central Wisconsin – This grant will support 10 new mentorship matches in 2019
Stevens Point Child Safety Center – The goal of the Child Safety Center is to make sure that each child and parent in Portage County is educated on proper safety measures. The funds of this grant will purchase children’s car seats and bicycle helmets.
Amherst After School Success Program – This organization provides a low-cost, high quality after school program for children in the community. Through this grant, they will purchase recreational equipment such as scooters, balls, hula-hoops, cones, and nets so we can provide fun games and activities on a daily basis.
Portage County Health and Human Services – Employment Foundation – The funds will support “Kids Day at Camp” for children ages 5 – 12. This event gives low-income children the opportunity to attend camp either for one day of for an overnight adventure.
Hunger & Poverty Prevention of Portage County – This grant will fund area food pantries, fund hunger and poverty prevention initiatives, and provides education about hunger and poverty issues.
Junior Achievement of Wisconsin – The funds will provide students with 5 to 7 hours of interactive hands-on activities that work to change their lives by helping them understand key age appropriate concepts such as financial literacy, work readiness, and economics concepts.
Roosevelt Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization – Grant monies will go towards providing new playground equipment for the school.
Boys and Girls Club of Portage County – Funding will support the addition of a Youth Behavior Specialist and two Youth Behavior Program Leader staff positions that will provide focused attention and developmentally appropriate programming for our members that require a higher level of care.
Central Wisconsin Children’s Museum – The grant will fund the monthly Healthy Family Night, during which Central Wisconsin Children’s Museum opens its doors for all families to explore at no cost to them. A family-style dinner is served and then followed by a brief healthy lifestyle program.
Evergreen Community Initiatives – Funding will allow Evergreen to operate and expand their clothing closet, which regularly provides clean clothing to teens and children in this area.
United Way of Portage County – These funds will support Learn for Life, a program designed to increase the reading achievement of second and third grade students.
The Fernandez Center – In the effort to make this alternative school feel more like a “real job,” the grant money will be used to purchase a time clock, time sheets for students to use, and a wall mounted time card holder as well as a Defined STEM learning curriculum.
These above recipients, headquartered within 100 miles of a Monogram location, were among many worthwhile applicants who applied for these charitable funds. A committee of Monogram team membersat each location decided how to allocate grant funds without any influence from upper management.
The Monogram Loves Kids Foundation was created in 2010 to give back to the communities in which Monogram team members live and work. Since 2010, Monogram Loves Kids has donated over $1.1 million to various children’s charities across the United States.