WOMEN WARRIORS FOUNDATION AWARDED MORE THAN $35,000

Funding to help female veterans with rental, child care, other needs

The Foundation for Women Warriors received a $35,250 grant from the San Diego Foundation to help female veterans and their families. The nonprofit based in Vista with a small distribution center in North Hollywood supports women as they transition from military to civilian life.

The grant is earmarked for providing female veterans with rental assistance and especially child care along with other services through its emergency services program.

Approximately 70 percent of the veterans that Foundation for Women Warriors serves are single mothers and as workplaces reopen this summer, the foundation expects to see an increased demand for child care assistance, according to Marine Corps veteran Jodie Grenier, the foundation’s CEO.

“Our single parents were hit especially hard during the pandemic and we are eager to support their child care needs so they can focus on getting back on track,” Grenier said.

Through its Childcare Assistance program, the nonprofit provides stipends to offset costs for licensed child care providers, so that veterans can keep their jobs or work on a college degree or certificate program and get back into the job market.

The 101-year-old nonprofit also provides child care stipends for day care and after-school care along with spring, summer and winter camps for children of working and student veteran mothers.

The nonprofit began in June 1920 as the California Soldiers Widow’s Home Association and was established on an acre of land donated by the McElroy family near the newly built West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs medical center. The nonprofit later expanded to also help female veterans along with widows of veterans, which was ref lected in its new name, Military Women in Need. More recently the nonprofit has focused its support on the female veteran community, and five years ago was renamed the Foundation for Women Warriors.