COVID-19 Response Fund crosses $700G mark in funds raised for nonprofits
MEDIA » The Foundation for Delaware County has crossed the $700,000 mark in funds raised for the Delaware County COVID-19 Response Fund. At the same time, it announced its seventeenth round of grants with two grants, totaling $55,000. Included are a $50,000 grant for Partners for Sacred Places to provide onsite socially distant support for remote learning to students in Chester Upland and William Penn School Districts. In addition, a $5,000 grant was distributed to Child Guidance Resource Centers to purchase personal protective equipment and hygiene supplies for staff in four community rehabilitation residences.
“We are so grateful for the generosity of every person who has contributed to the Response Fund. It is not too late to donate. The foundation is still receiving requests for funding from nonprofits addressing immediate needs in the community,” said Frances Sheehan, president. “Nonprofits are still seeing increased demand at food pantries and are still in need of PPE, cleaning supplies, and funding for new technology so that they can serve vulnerable clients.”
73 grants have helped nonprofits serving Delaware County to re-open childcare service operations safely, provide food boxes and essential items such as diapers and basic hygiene products to low-income families, purchase personal protective equipment for fron-tline workers, supply breakfast and lunch items for students, provide support for remote learning and much more.
The complete list of grantees from the Delaware County
COVID-19 Response Fund is available at https://delcofoundation.org/response-fundgrant-awards.
The following organizations were awarded grants in September from the Delaware County COVID-19 Response Fund:
• Child Guidance Resource Centers: $5,000 to purchase personal protective equipment and hygiene supplies for staff in four community rehabilitation residences.
• Partners for Sacred Places: $50,000 to provide onsite socially distant support for remote learning to students in Chester Upland and William Penn School Districts.
• Chester Upland School District: $18,240 to fund Parent Technology Support Centers to educate, train and assist parents with aiding their children with virtual learning. Services will also meet language needs of Spanish, Arabic and French speaking families.
• College Possible: $7,500 to support technology needed to recruit, engage and work with Delaware County high school students planning to attend college.
• Merc y Catholic:
$10,000 for grocery store gift cards for families using church-related food pantries to supplement those food baskets with ethnic food not available.
• Tyler A rboretum:
$10,000 to grow produce to support and supplement several Delaware County food pantries.
• Teachers’ Teammates:
$10,000 for grab and go bags for elementary school students in the William Penn School District. Each bag will provide supplies students need at home so they can fully participate in virtual learning. The bags will be distributed to 3,000 K-6 grade students and include items such as pencils, pens, a white board, crayons, markers, glue sticks, composition book and more.
For more information and updates, visit the foundation at www.delcofoundation.org or follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram @delcofdn.
A public charity founded in
2016, The Foundation for Delaware County is the largest philanthropy serving Delaware County. One of 780 community foundations across the U.S., the foundation focuses on encouraging philanthropy, convening across sectors to address challenging community issues, and makes grants to strengthen Delaware County’s nonprofit community. In March, the foundation distributed more than $1 million in grants to improve the well-being of the diverse residents in the county. Learn more here: https://delcofoundation.org/delaware-county
grant-awards-2020.
With headquarters in Media and service sites in Eddystone, Upper Darby and Springfield, The Foundation for Delaware County also operates the prestigious evidence-based programs: Healthy Start, the WIC nutrition program and NurseFamily Partnership. Other programs include: Drug Free Communities El Centro and a health resource center for students in the Chester Upland School District, which serves one of the region’s poorest communities. To learn more, visit the foundation on the web at www.delcofoundation.org.
Victoria Wyeth leads intimate conversation about art
Bethesda Project will partner with Victoria Wyeth, granddaughter of esteemed Pennsylvania artist Andrew Wyeth, for an intimate conversation about the life and works of her grandfather at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19. The event, held as a part of Bethesda Project’s programs for National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, will be held virtually.
Wyeth, a realist painter, is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. With paintings focusing on the land and people around him, including his hometown of Chadds Ford and summer home in Midcoast Maine, Wyeth’s works have been featured in museums internationally with a large collection in the Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford. His popularity also spans into popular culture, with works inspiring set designs and mentions in TV shows and even comic books. One 1963 journalist, as listed in Wyeth’s obituary in the New York Times, noted his appeal to the masses for “in today’s scrambled-egg school of art, Wyeth stands out as a wild-eyed radical… For the people he paints wear their noses in the usual place, and the weathered barns and bare-limbed trees in his starkly simple will landscapes are more real than reality.”
Victoria Wyeth will lead this exclusive event sharing intimate details of her grandfather’s works and life. The virtual event will support Bethesda Project’s programs and services. Wyeth notes that “homelessness creates trauma on so many levels and as someone who has worked in the field of mental health for over a decade, I want to help in any way that I can.”
Tickets cost $100 per device and can be purchased at: www.bethesdaproject.org/2020-hhaweek.
Since 1979, Bethesda Project has been providing emergency shelter, housing and supportive services for thousands of individuals experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia. Across its 14 locations, Bethesda Project offers a home and safe environment where guests and residents can stabilize and regain their dignity and self-worth. Over four decades later, Bethesda Project remains committed to its initial calling — to find and care for the abandoned poor and to be family with those who have none. For more information, visit www.bethesdaproject.org.
National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, November 15-22, is a national endeavor by the National Coalition for the Homeless to promote education, action, and awareness about hunger and homelessness.
Friendship Circle Senior Center hosts genealogy club
Senior Community Services’ Friendship Circle Senior Center in Darby is hosting a free Genealogy Series beginning Tuesday, Nov. 10, from 12 noon to 1 p.m. by Zoom and Conference Call. Jerry Sanders, Friendship Circle instructor, will encourage class participants to research their family history and be open to discoveries sensitive in nature.
Class participants will construct a family tree of connections of whom they have current knowledge to begin the process of researching and growing their individual family tree.
Pre-registration is required by contacting Jennifer Tennant, 484-534-2033 or jtennant@scs-delco.org.