As part of its 2019 spring grants cycle, the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County has awarded $189,500 to local nonprofit organizations through Special Project Challenge Grants.

The Special Project Challenge Grant process encourages projects in community development and urban affairs; parks, recreation, and environment; health and human services, and youth and education. All nonprofit organizations serving the citizens of St. Joseph County are eligible to apply.

These Special Project Challenge Grant recipients include:
 

• St. Joseph County Parks Foundation: $75,000 to support development of a 1.5-acre Natural PlayScape at St. Patrick’s County Park
• Women’s Care Center: $40,000 to support expansion of educational programming at the Center’s new location on South Bend’s west side, opening in the fall of 2019
• Robinson Community Learning Center: $25,000 to help support a staff training initiative to integrate design thinking with a makerspace curriculum and related equipment
• Center for Civic Engineering, University of Notre Dame’s College of Engineering: $25,000 to support a collaboration with the City of South Bend and Riley High School that will create a hands-on environmental lab to collect and study data related to Bowman Creek
• Neighborhood Resources Connection: $10,000 to expand the NRC’s Engaging Youth Engaging Neighborhoods photo-voice and civic leadership curriculum
• O’Hana Heritage Foundation (A Rosie Place): $9,500 to expand A Rosie Place’s art therapy program for medically fragile children
• St. Joseph Polish Roman Catholic Cemetery Association of St. Joseph County: $5,000 to bring “The Wall That Heals,” a 3/4-scale mobile replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., to our community

Since 1992, the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County has been connecting people who care with causes that matter. A nonprofit philanthropic endowment, the Community Foundation serves the people of St. Joseph County through initiatives and grantmaking in the areas of arts and culture, health and human services, youth and education, community and economic development, and parks and recreation. SInce inception, the Community Foundation has granted more than $110,000,000 to deserving nonprofit organizations and causes that make St. Joseph County a better place to live.