Record $425,000 Awarded to 24 Gwinnett/Forsyth Nonprofits!
We recently awarded 24 grants to area nonprofits at our annual grant awards celebration. Held on June 4th at The 1818 Club, the event was one of the highlights of the year. Twenty-four grants were awarded, totaling a RECORD $425,000! That number included a $200,000 challenge grant for Aurora Theatre’s capital campaign, thanks to the Mary Kistner Fund. Including nonprofits who received challenge grants, the total impact being funneled into area nonprofits is $1,057,000.
Our Good2Give Community Fund provides the funding for the grants, along with the help of our generous fundholders. The grants received are just a portion of the estimated $5 million we will pour into nonprofits this year, along with education programming and other support services.
“This is one of the highlights of our year. It’s why we exist,” said Randy Redner, our president and CEO. “Our communities have so many incredible nonprofits doing life-changing, generation-changing, work each and every day. To be able to support some of them in the work they do, to help them impact even more people and change even more lives – that is part of our mission here at the Community Foundation.
“Including this year’s grants, the Community Foundation has now donated over $86 million to worthy charities since 1985!”
The main focus of this year’s grant awards were food insufficiency and early education.
“Our grants committee pours over each application, spending hours making decisions regarding where these funds needed to go,” said Julie Arnold, chair of the grants committee. “It was not an easy task to select these 24 winners out of the 45 who submitted grant applications. Additionally, our generous fundholders stepped in again, allowing us to go above and beyond so we could grant all of those 24 requests. We are so thankful for the incredibly generous community and fundholders we have!”
The grant awards ended with a special grant to Aurora Theatre. Years ago, activist and long-time supporter of the arts Mary Kistner (now deceased) established a fund at the Community Foundation. She desired to ensure the arts continued to thrive in Gwinnett long after she was gone. Since then, we have carefully managed her fund, granting funds to The Hudgens Center for the Arts and now, this year, to Aurora Theatre’s capital campaign. Aurora’s expansion is truly a community development project that includes the City of Lawrenceville and Georgia Gwinnett College and will bring more arts education to the community, among many other benefits. The funds granted yesterday will create the Mary Kistner Gallery at Aurora.
“We were thrilled to present this $200,000 challenge grant to Aurora’s Co-founder/Producing Artistic Director Anthony Rodriguez and are so excited about how Aurora’s expansion will positively impact not only Lawrenceville but Gwinnett and beyond!” Arnold said.
Did you know anyone can give to the Community Foundation’s Good2Give Community Fund? There is no age limit or dollar amount restrictions on the fund as giving is something we want the entire community involved in. To donate or learn more, visit cfneg.org/good2give.
To see the list of winners, visit cfneg.org/nonprofit-partners/grant.