We’re thrilled to announce $8.6 million in July grants to organizations serving Cuyahoga, Lake and Geauga County residents!

Many of our grants this month support three of the foundation’s priority areas of impact: health & human services, the arts and neighborhood revitalization.

Health & Human Services

• $20,000 to the Center for Advanced Mental Health Practice (CAMHP) Foundation, which provides psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and addiction treatment for residents in Cleveland and eastern Cuyahoga County. The grant will support CAMHP’s Siggy’s Village, which provides Collinwood residents with enriching activities and programs, including starting an urban farm, complete with bee hives and lavender. The farm will provide employment and training for men and women from reentry and treatment programs, and those with developmental disabilities and mental illness. Products from the farm will be sold in Siggy’s Village Urban Market.
• $25,000 to the Westside Community House to support an Anisfield-Wolf Associate for Sisterhood, a literary arts mastery program. Sisterhood provides a range of educational, social and cultural programs for low-income, minority girls ages 10-18. The new staff member will introduce works from the Anisfield-Wolf canon, create curriculum and improve basic literacy skills among participants. Since 1935, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards has recognized writers whose works confront racism and celebrate diversity. The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards ceremony anchors Cleveland Book Week, an annual celebration of books and literacy.

• $60,000 to Youth Challenge (YC) to improve its Westlake facility, adding space for activity rooms, as well as increasing programs offered and participants served. YC offers year-round sports and recreational programming for children with physical impairments, using teen volunteers to work with participants during adapted sports and recreational activities.

Arts

• $7,500 to Mamai Theatre Company to improve women’s access and participation in theater as Mamai transitions to new space in Playhouse Square. Our support will help the company improve operations and ensure women, particularly women of color and with income barriers, have more opportunity to participate in the performing arts. Mamai also works to ensure Greater Clevelanders can enjoy productions by female storytellers, largely centered on stories about women and performed by women.
• $109,000 to DANCECleveland to present a 10-day dance festival in Cleveland (happening right now!) in partnership with American Dance Festival, including workshops for college-age students, three performances, and a variety of other free community events. The foundation supported DANCECleveland in 2016 to grow the visibility of dance in Northeast Ohio and explore new partnerships such as this festival. It’s not too late to enjoy performances and workshops at the festival this week.
• $50,000 to the International Documentary Association to fund a documentary about the reentry program “Chopping for Change” at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry, which will be screened around the world. Our support will allow for the filming of interviews with women in the program, as well as editing, transcription and production. Chopping for Change is the first and only program in Ohio that trains incarcerated inmates outside of prison grounds. Women soon to re-enter the community are provided with counseling, addiction treatment, job skills and culinary training.

Neighborhood Revitalization

• $60,000 to In Our Backyards, Inc. (ioby), an organization supporting residents in rebuilding and strengthening healthy and sustainable neighborhoods using a crowd-funding approach. ioby opened a Cleveland office in 2016 with support from Saint Luke’s Foundation to encourage and help neighborhood leaders in Buckeye, Mount Pleasant, Larchmere and Woodland. Our support this year will help ioby add more neighborhood leaders by expanding across the city of Cleveland, with a focus on the Clark/Fulton neighborhood.
• $60,000 to the Cleveland Tenants Organization, which educates tenants and landlords and advocates for affordable, fair and quality rental housing. Our support will, in part, help fund the hiring of a Lead Hazard Outreach Coordinator to work with families affected by lead poisoning, to work with landlords in offering remediation options, and to survey individuals living in rental properties constructed before 1978 in the city of Cleveland.

These are just a few of our July grants. Follow our grantmaking each month – and get the latest news from the Cleveland Foundation – by signing up for our monthly e-newsletter here.