Community Foundation awards additional grants

On the heels of an enormously successful first round of Community Assistance Grants last February, the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation (NPCF) presented an additional $77,000 in grants to 11 nonprofits in Rappahannock, Culpeper and Fauquier counties. Created by the PATH Foundation last year to provide funding for emergent community needs, Community Assistance Grants cover a broad range of causes. This September round of funding will support a variety of social services, the performing arts, and more. Hospice of the Piedmont received $15,000, the highest amount awarded in this round, to help its Center for Children and Center for Grief and Healing. Renowned as the go-to agency for grief and crisis care, the organization maintains programs for children and adults dealing with the loss of a loved one. The grant will help fund critically needed counseling and healing sessions, all of which are provided at no charge. A $10,000 grant was awarded to VolTran, which provides free transportation to those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to follow through on medical, dental, and mental health appointments or make trips to grocery stores, pharmacies, and other facilities. Funds will be used to expand VolTran’s awareness outreach efforts, thereby increasing its volunteer base as well as the number of people it serves in all three counties. The Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services Board says it was thrilled to receive $10,000 — the full amount requested — to create a loan fund that ensures participants in its Housing Choice Voucher/Rental Assis- tance Program don’t lose their assistance through no fault of their own. Similarly, the Mental Health Association of Fauquier County received the requested amount of $9,000 to host a full-day educational forum to discuss solutions to the ongoing problem of substance abuse, especially opioid addiction. Several Culpeper-based organizations were grant recipients, including Culpeper Literacy Council, which was awarded $6,700 for its Seeds for Success program to help young adults improve their basic literacy skills, as well as Culpeper YoungLives and the Museum of Culpeper History. In addition, three performing arts-related organizations — Piedmont Symphony Orchestra, Windmore Foundation for the Arts, and Castleton Festival — benefited from grants. “We honed in on the original premise of ‘emergent need’ for this round of grants,” said NPCF Executive Director Jane Bowling-Wilson. “It was fantastic that we were able to award some to operations for a few nonprofits.” Established in 2000, the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation is a public charity that builds philanthropic capital to enhance and preserve the quality of life in Rappahannock, Culpeper, Fauquier and Madison counties and to strengthen the region’s nonprofit organizations.