Butte Strong Fund awards nearly $1.4M in grants

The Butte Strong Fund has approved seven grants totaling nearly $1.4 million, largely focused on housing and mental health.

The largest grant is $649,500 for Community Housing Improvement Program, to help build 17 homes for Camp Fire survivors and between 50 and 200 units of multi-family rental housing.

A large portion of the grant will subsidize site development for 12 self-help home lots in Paradise and add staffing for CHIP. In the self-help program, participants work in groups to construct homes for one another. Each household contributes at least 30 hours per week.

A grant of up to $326,000 will help Valley Contractors Exchange implement a program called Mobile Training Force. The goal of the project is to recruit new workers and develop skills of existing workers to help fill a gaping need for skilled workers in building trades such as electricians, plumbers and concrete finishers. The Mobile Training Force will feature a truck and 24foot trailer outfitted as a mobile classroom to introduce construction careers in fire-affected areas.

The Butte Strong Fund grant serves as the local match to apply for a larger grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

A $295,014 grant will extend a program that has placed counselors in Butte County schools since the Camp Fire. The grant will help the counseling services continue at 13 school sites including Paradise, Magalia, Concow and Berry Creek.

Other Butte Strong Fund grants awarded in the past month include:

• $35,000 for Paradise Unified School District’s Mindful Littles program. The grant allowed the servicelearning program to expand during the current school year to serve approximately 7,000Paradise elementary school students. This learning program is delivered as 20-minute biweekly classroom lessons by a trained Mindful Littles facilitator with a corresponding service project extension that will be administered for students to reinforce lesson concepts. Each unit includes a perspectivebuilding lesson, integration of mindfulness and selfcompassion habits, and an opportunity to do regular service projects to serve others in the Butte County community and beyond. • $35,000 to Butte County Office of Education to continue a program that places trauma-informed teaching artists in the schools. A previous Butte Strong Fund grant helped create the program and this grant extends it for a second year. This grant will support an increase in the number of students served and additional components that are being added to help the program become sustainable. The program provides 20 teaching artists in residencies to serve in Paradise elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools, the Boys and Girls club and in the community.

• $5,000 to Paradise Community Chorus to help the organization stage a December community concert.

• $25,000 to fund a support program for suicide prevention and intervention. The CARE (Community Assessment Response Education) Team is a collaboration of several organizations and will be managed by Thrive, which is NVCF’s health and wellness initiative.

Organizations interested in applying for Butte Strong Fund grants can visit nvcf. org/buttestrongfund to determine if they qualify for funding. Donations to the fund can also be made on the web page.