Foundation for Women Warriors receives $50K
Foundation for Women Warriors, a Vista-based nonprofit, received a $50,000 grant from the Rancho Santa Fe Women’s Fund for its Women Veteran Emergency and Transition Services programs in San Diego County.
The nonprofit provides services to female veterans and their children as they make the transition from the military to civilian life throughout Southern California.
The grant is slated to provide female veterans with rental assistance and child care, along with other services through its emergency services program.
“This award comes at a time when all costs are rising: housing, child care, gas and other basic necessities. This grant will allow us to meet the growing needs of an increasing women veteran population in San Diego,” said Marine Corps veteran Jodie Grenier, CEO of the foundation.
The foundation provides stipends, for example, to offset child care costs, so veterans can keep their jobs or work on a college degree or certificate program and get back into the job market.
The nonprofit started as the California Soldiers Widow’s Home Association in June 1920 on an acre of land donated by the McElroy family near the newly built West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs medical center. For almost 80 years, the organization provided housing in eight bungalow units on the property to widows, war nurses and mothers of fallen service members.
The nonprofit later expanded programs to focus specifically on the needs of female veterans at risk for homelessness, and operated under the name Military Women in Need. In 2016, the organization was rebranded and renamed Foundation for Women Warriors.
Foundation for Women Warriors earned the 2022 Gayle Gillies-Mize honor, given to the organization receiving the most Rancho Santa Fe Women’s Fund member votes.
“These women veterans who are part of the Foundation for Women Warriors Emergency and Transition Services program soundly served our country. They deserve the same level of dedication from us,” said Mara Buchholz, former co-chair of the Grants Committee of the Rancho Santa Fe Women’s Fund.