About the Recipients
Giving2Grow is so honored to be able to provide some support to seven wonderful organizations in the SW Pennsylvania area – three new to us and four returning – that serve children who face food insecurity. Explore the websites below to learn more about our 2021 Grant Recipients.
Organization’s Mission: Angels’ Place provides exceptional family support and quality early childhood education to help single parents and their children to become lifelong learners and create a brighter future.
Program Description/Goals: Angels’ Place is committed to providing home-cooked, nutritionally balanced daily meals and snacks served family-style to the children enrolled in our programs and their parents. Our Family Support Director works to identify food insecurities with each family to connect them to resources for food, including fresh fruits and vegetables at farm stands. Nutritional education is provided at multiple sessions during Parent Meetings throughout the year. Parents learn how to cook healthy meals on a budget and ensure that all basic needs are met. At meetings throughout the year, parents receive health and wellness activities that they can complete at home with their children. Some examples include healthy recipes with supplies, growing plants, and identifying healthy food choices. Angels’ Place currently is serving 26 families and 37 children, and the goal is to expand to 130 clients, including at least 65 children.
East End United Community Center
Organization’s Mission: Our mission is to advance the growth and well-being of individuals and families by providing educational, social, economic and cultural opportunities to our community.
Program Description/Goals: Within the EEUCC’s after-school program, the Gardening to Give project will allow approximately 50 elementary students from high-poverty, low-performing schools daily activities to learn to grow, harvest and prepare healthy fruits and vegetables. The program will incorporate a yearlong nutrition-based service-learning project that will allow them to not only learn, but to grow the food (indoor, outdoors, in urban and rural areas and in raised beds), harvest the food, and give back to their community by distributing the produce to community members in need. Our funds will provide food and equipment for cooking, printing costs (youth-created newsletters and pamphlets) and canvas bags for food distribution.
Fayette County Community Action Association
Organization’s Mission: Fayette County Community Action’s mission is to strengthen individuals and families to become more self-sufficient, achieving their potential by taking advantage of opportunities, improving the conditions in which they live, and taking ownership of their community.
Program Description/Goals: Delivered by the nurses in FCCAA’s Nurse Family Partnership program, Let’s Get Cooking! is designed to provide the knowledge and means to ensure good nutrition to pregnant mothers and their children up to the age of 2. The at-home and virtual cooking classes help food-insecure families develop the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve a healthful diet on a limited budget. Ingredients and the required cooking equipment, if needed, are also provided with each instruction module. Clients who have participated in the program in the past two years have reported more confidence in preparing healthy meals at home for the entire family.
Organization’s Mission: Garfield Community Farm provides fresh produce and educational opportunities with our neighbors and volunteers, and seeks to demonstrate restoration of creation through urban agriculture in the Garfield community.
Program Description/Goals: Garfield Community Farm is an urban permaculture project on the slopes of Garfield, 2.5 acres of reclaimed land that was once abandoned and degraded. Working with members of the community, they address the needs of those living on the higher slopes of the neighborhood where access to fresh produce is limited. It serves the community by providing outdoor, ecologically-based education for the neighborhood children, combining nutrition education with food production, harvesting and distribution. Our funding will allow the Farm to work with neighborhood children through school partnerships, field trips, farm summer camp with local teens, and special events at the farm focusing on children and families.
Organization’s Mission: Our mission is to provide a range of supportive services and housing that empowers homeless families, who are survivors of domestic violence or other trauma, to become independent, self-sufficient, and adequately housed; to foster housing opportunities to prevent homelessness and encourage safe, affordable housing.
Program Description/Goals: HEARTH has the capacity to shelter 16 families with up to four children each. A food pantry offering nutritious food items is available to all residents. It has been stocked through community food drives and food bank orders; however, at times supplies become low or certain items are missing. The goal is to have a continuously well-stocked supply of healthy and appetizing food available in order to eliminate food insecurity, and our families can concentrate on the steps to independence and self-sufficiency. This will also have a positive effect on children’s learning as well as development. Safety includes knowing that you will have food.
Mooncrest Neighborhood Programs
Organization’s Mission: Recognizing the dignity and beauty of each person, the Mooncrest Ministry promotes spiritual, intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development for children and families living in the Mooncrest neighborhood.
Program Description/Goals: The Mooncrest After School Program and the Mooncrest Summer Camp program seek to ensure that no one goes hungry in the community, and that children receive adequate nutrition which is key to academic success. Mooncrest is a low-income, primarily rental community located in an isolated section of Moon Township, with no public transportation. Families who don’t own a car often deal with food access difficulties. These two programs provide children with daily nutritious meals on site, plus healthy snacks and additional food to take home to their families. Activities include planting, tending, and harvesting a community garden.
Organization’s Mission: Rainbow Kitchen Community Services is committed to improving the quality of life for low-income families and individuals through programs that address hunger, child nutrition, and supportive services.
Program Description/Goals: The Kids Café is designed to alleviate child hunger and help meet the nutritional needs of low-income children by providing between 375-400 children with a hot, balanced and nutritious dinner, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Working within that program allows Rainbow Kitchen to improve the quality of life for these children by providing back-to-school backpacks loaded with school supplies, holiday gifts, games, books and other donated items, and information on their oter services and programs. The children range in age up to 18, and are in Homestead, West Homestead, Munhall and West Munhall. Our funds will provide food for the children, cook wages and program supplies.
