Nonprofit leaders and educators gathered at Camp Jabberwocky Thursday evening to celebrate $1.3 million in grants given by the Martha’s Vineyard Bank Charitable Foundation to support local projects on the Island and in Falmouth.
The two largest grants of the night went to Martha’s Vineyard Community Services and the YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard, a pair of organizations that are revamping their campuses. The charitable foundation gave the nonprofits $500,000 each.
“Everyone in this room shares a willingness to serve others, to dedicate their time, energy and emotion to creating a better world,” said James Anthony, the CEO of both the bank and the charitable foundation.
Community Services, which offers a plethora of services including mental health care and domestic violence support, is currently operating out of a building that frequently leaks and has walls so thin that it’s difficult to have private counseling. The nonprofit has been working to build a new building for the last five years, and the charitable foundation grant brings Community Services fundraising to $12 million, ensuring that the organization will be able to move forward with construction, said CEO Beth Folcarelli.
“What this means for us at Community Services is that this winter, we will put the shovel in the ground,” she said.
The $500,000 awarded to the YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard will also go towards a building expansion. The Y is looking to construct a 39,000-square foot addition to better meet the needs of the community and to expand programing, including part-time toddler care and middle school programs, according to YMCA CEO Jill Robie-Axtell.
“The YMCA was supposed to have a gymnasium and an elevated track and some other program space when it was originally built in 2009,” she said. “The economic crisis was pretty bad, and we didn’t have all the money raised to build the entire thing. Now we’re finally completing the dream.”
Martha’s Vineyard Ocean Academy, which will also be using its $250,000 grant to update the Shenandoah so the vessel can handle more open-ocean voyages and longer excursions. The academy runs a series of programs to help children through sailing.
“For us to be able to continue into the future, we need to build a new facility for our program. Our program just happens to be on a boat,” Ian Ridgeway, the co-founder of the academy, told the Gazette.
The foundation also gave the Falmouth Housing Trust $50,000 to go towards building five new single-family houses.
“We’re trying to build homes our workforce can afford,” Karen Bissonnette, the trust’s chief development officer, told the Gazette. “We have the same issues the Island has— we don’t have enough workforce.”
Past grant recipients gave updates on what they are doing with the money they have received from the foundation.
Ben Hughes, an English and music teacher at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School told the crowd Friday about the recording studio he is working to build using an Art of Teaching grant he received from the Martha’s Vineyard Bank Charitable Foundation. He is using the money to buy a microphone, headphones and other equipment for his students.
“A lot of kids are consumers of technology, scrolling all the time,” Mr. Hughes said. “This lets them be producers and artists. It is important for kids to know they can be creators and not just consumers.”
Merrick Carreiro, the food equity director at Island Grown Initiative, also shared news about what the organization is working on with the help of money from the foundation. The charitable foundation last year gave Island Grown Initiative $1 million for a new food pantry in Oak Bluffs, and the project is ready for a ribbon-cutting ceremony later this month.
“I’m just so proud to be part of all of it, and see how far we’ve come and how much further we’re going to go together,” Ms. Carreiro said.
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