2024 Grant Recipients
B5 Learning Center together with The Children’s Reading
Foundation
Program: Team Read for B5 Students
B5 supports refugees and immigrants through education, relationships, and community so they can thrive in their new home.
The Children’s Reading Foundation of the Mid-Columbia ensures that every child learns to read early and well. Thereby reaching their full potential in school and in life.
Through the Team Read™ program, trained volunteers and staff are partnered with students who need help developing their literacy skills. These coaches provide one-on-one tutoring twice a week after school.
Unfortunately, after 2nd grade, students do not have the opportunity to learn to read, they are now expected to read to learn. Many school-aged refugee students begin their education in our schools after second grade. Team Read gives them the opportunity to develop needed reading skills. After an initial assessment, the CRFMC Team Read staff recommend where each student should begin their individualized instruction based on their current reading level. With the help of Team Read tutors, many students make great strides, gaining reading skills, language development, and confidence.
Children’s Developmental Center
Program: Applied Behavior Analysis Services
Children’s Developmental Center empowers families and improve children’s lives through early intervention services, education, and therapeutic services.
Applied Behavior Analysis Services is the science of changing socially significant behavior. Whether or not your child has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ABA can help. ABA is geared towards children 2-6, is highly structured and includes an individual treatment plan and therapies to address the uniqueness of your child’s needs.
Columbia Ability Alliance
Program: Opportunity Kitchen
Columbia Ability Alliance is dedicated to supporting and empowering individuals with unique abilities and life barriers, in order to foster their independence and help them achieve personal success.
Opportunity Kitchen is a 12-week food service training program for adults facing employment barriers in which they gain hands-on experience in a commercial kitchen. The goal is for all participants to gain skills needed to thrive in community-based food service or hospitality jobs. Many of the students experience homelessness, or unstable housing, lack of employment or skills to gain employment, mental health issues, single parenthood, and many other barriers that make maintaining employment difficult.
Columbia Basin College Foundation
Program: Emergency Funding for Mothers
Columbia Basin College Foundation is dedicated to provide students opportunities and support to achieve their educational goals.
The Emergency Funding for Mothers will cover one-time, unexpected expenses that may prevent an individual from continuing their education. These funds are available outside of regular scholarship cycles to fill gaps when student need them most. The goal of the emergency fund is to alleviate unexpected burdens and keep students on track to completing their education.
Domestic Violence Service of Benton and Franklin Counties
Program: Empowered Workforce
Domestic Violence Services of Benton and Franklin Counties is dedicated to create a healthy community free from all forms of domestic violence.
The Empowered Workforce program aims to provide training and employment opportunities for domestic violence survivors, and vulnerable youth ages 16-24 helping them regain their independence and become financially self-sufficient. Overall, the program aims to help survivors of domestic violence break the cycle of abuse and vulnerable youth build a brighter future for themselves and their families.
Elijah Family Homes
Program: Parent-Child Assistance
Elijah Family Homes fosters hope, dignity, and self-sufficiency through stable housing and supportive services for families seeking recovery.
The Parent-Child Assistance Program (PCAP) is an evidence-informed home visitation case-management model for pregnant and parenting women with substance use disorders. The home visitation case management model was created to help mother who abuse alcohol or drugs during their pregnancy. The primary goal is PCAP is to prevent future births of alcohol and/or drug exposed children through our three-year case management program. Our case managers work closely with clients on a one-on-one basis with regular home visitation linking women and their families with a comprehensive array of existing community resources to address health care, housing, child welfare, and other issues.
Girl Scouts of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho
Program: Go-Getter Outreach Troops
Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.
Go-Getter Outreach Troops support mental well-being in girls between 5-18. Half of all mental health conditions begin by age 14, but most go undetected and untreated. Girl Scouts has continued to adjust its structure to
flexibly meet girls needs while emphasizing four overlapping areas that are crucial to girls success today and tomorrow: supporting their mental and physical well-being, reducing their learning loss, promoting equity and social justice, and developing a workforce with more talented women leaders. Maintaining our focus on our four core “pillars” of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), Outdoors, Life Skills, and Entrepreneurship.
Grace Collective
Program: Trauma Informed Care and Therapeutic Services for Women Survivors of Trafficking, Incarceration, Addiction, Homelessness, and Poverty
Grace Collective is a non-profit that offers hope and opportunity for lasting change to women survivors of trafficking, addiction, homelessness, and poverty. We do this by fostering a community of grace where women learn job and life skills that enable them to gain sustainable employment and a secure future for themselves and their children.
Providing trauma-informed care and therapeutic resources by offering holistic trauma-informed services for women survivors and their families. Services include peer-support groups, hiking and annual family camps, case management, legal advocacy, and access to resources for healing and empowerment during their paid work experience. We prioritize creating a safe and nurturing environment, recognizing, and addressing the impact of trauma on individuals and communities. Through a collaborative approach, we aim to foster resilience, promote healing, and empower women to rebuild their lives with dignity and strength.
Heartlinks Hospice & Palliative Care
Program: Faces of Pediatric Palliative Care
Heartlinks Hospice & Palliative Care serves to enrich the quality of one’s life and recognize its worth by providing comfort, care, and support on life’s journey.
The Faces of Pediatric Palliative Care addresses the critical gap in awareness surrounding pediatric palliative care services and aims to humanize the experiences of families facing these challenges. The program seeks to evoke empathy, break down barriers, and foster a supportive community network by showcasing real stories and insights from patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals. Through targeted public service announcements and educational content, Heartlinks aims to empower families with the knowledge and resources they need to navigate their journey with confidence, dignity, and unwavering support.
Mid-Columbia Mastersingers
Program: Treble Choir and Columbia Chorale
Mid-Columbia Mastersingers transforms lives through the power of choral music. We envision a world where choral music is valued and supported by the community and is accessible to people of all ages and cultures.
MCM’s Treble Choir offers an annual concert to the public featuring an all-women ensemble from our singer roster. The repertoire for this program features works by women composers and highlights the distinctive vocal experiences of women.
Columbia Chorale is our “come just as you are” ensemble that is open to anyone seeking a choral community without requiring an audience. The Chorale is 80% female and
offers an intergenerational group singing experience, led by a woman director and rehearsal accompanist.
Mirror Ministries
Program: Survivor Support Groups for Trafficking Victims and Their Families
Mirror Ministries’ mission is to respond to domestic minor sex trafficking with the love of Christ through local education, intervention, restoration, and aftercare. Our vision is to see local victims of sex trafficking become survivors who have hope, healing, and restoration.
Survivor Support Groups for Trafficking Victims and Their Families is a series of support groups designed specifically for victims of trafficking utilizing psycho-education to bring healing from extreme complex trauma. These support groups are filled with others that have had similar traumas and are able to understand the complexities of one another’s issues. As we have seen how the trauma impacts the whole family, we have groups for the parents of victims, and a continued safety and stability to all survivors in our community.
Safe Harbor Support Center
Program: Safe Harbor C.A.R.E.S.
Safe Harbor Support Center is dedicated to creating a safe nurturing environment, helping children and families heal from trauma and recover from abuse and neglect.
Safe Harbor C.A.R.E.S. (cultivating adaptability and resilience through emotional self-regulation) is an evidence-based program aiding children and families in managing challenging behaviors impacting a child’s success at school, daycare, and home. Our parenting program supports families, addressing factors contributing to negative behaviors while enhancing positive parenting skills. Staff guide children to develop adaptability, resilience, and emotional regulation skills, optimizing their learning time in educational settings. This alleviates the burden on working mothers, enabling them to concentrate on employment and advancement opportunities, fostering financial security, and diminishing the need for harsh physical discipline.
Second Harvest Inland Northwest
Program: Mobile Market
Fighting hunger, feeding hope: Second Harvest brings community resources together to feed people in need through empowerment, education, and partnerships.
The Mobile Market helps increase food access to underserved population across the Inland Northwest, including the Tri-Cities. The market brings a refrigerated truck carrying up to 10,000 pounds of food, including fresh produce, dairy, meat products, bread, cereal, and other staples to sites in high-need communities. Anyone can access food through a Mobile Market. Second Harvest distributes food directly to families of all sizes at no cost.
Therapeutic Riding of Tri-Cities
Program: Path to Success
TROT seeks to promote the psychological, physical, and social well-being of individuals using animal-assisted therapies and activities.
The unique Path to Success program, launched in 2018, teaches horsemanship fundamentals while fostering relationships, responsibility, and communication. Evolving from a pilot for special needs, it now serves a growing demand from community agencies that help diverse groups, i.e. foster children, veterans, trafficking victims, eating disorder victims, etc. We adapt the curriculum to meet specific needs, aiming to double participation and expand class offerings. By fostering purpose, we in turn build and strengthen a sense of community. Our purpose is to Empower, Engage, and Educate by tailoring experiences and leveraging the healing power of horses to enrich lives.
Tri-County Partners Habitat for Humanity
Program: Women Build
Tri-County Partners Habitat for Humanity focuses on ensuring that all residents of Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla Counties have the opportunity for a decent and affordable place to live; Habitat for Humanity seeks to put God’s love into action by bringing people together to build homes, communities, and hope.
The Women’s Build scheduled for the first full week of March, will feature workshops and home builds, aimed at teaching basic home-repair and construction skills to community members, with a focus on empowering women.
WSU Tri-Cities
Program: STEM Discovery for Elementary Schools
WSU-TC strives to advance knowledge through creative research and scholarship across a wide range of academic disciplines. To extend knowledge through innovative educational programs in which emerging scholars are mentored to realize their highest potential and assume roles of leadership, responsibility, and service to society. To apply knowledge through local and global engagement that will improve quality of life and enhance the economy of the state, nation, and world.
WSU-TC STEM Discovery is a program focused on providing underserved elementary school students with opportunities to receive hands on STEM instruction from WSU research faculty. Our goal is to create learning opportunities that create a sense of belonging in STEM as well as providing exciting, joyful opportunities for students from all backgrounds to participate and find success in discovery and investigation.