Four Island nonprofits that work with children are getting infusions of capital from MV Youth after the organization announced more than $2 million in grants this week.
At a celebration at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum Wednesday, MV Youth announced it had pledged $1 million to the YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard for a new, multi-purpose field house, $600,000 to the Chilmark preschool for its own school building, $500,000 to Martha’s Vineyard Ocean Academy for a new ocean-going schooner to replace the aging Shenandoah and $240,000 to ACE MV to expand its internship program.
MV Youth’s mission has long been to provide last-round financing for capital projects but this year it chose to offer financial support to three organizations in the early stages of ongoing building campaigns in hopes of generating additional support.
“In all three of these capital projects, we are pledging a little earlier than we normally do with the idea that our endorsement will hopefully help these organizations raise the rest,” said MV Youth executive director Lindsey Scott.
The YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard still needs to raise another $8 million to begin construction on its 39,000-square-foot addition. The building will include a recreational gymnasium with a three-lane running track and room for everything from the high school wrestling program to indoor pickleball, basketball and other games, YMCA executive director Jill Robie-Axtell said.
The Y also plans to offer part-time child care and establish an after-school drop-in center for middle-school students, similar to its wildly popular Alex’s Place for older teens, Ms. Robie-Axtell said.
“We see several hundred students coming over from the high school every day to use the teen center, Alex’s Place,” she said. “What we don’t have is a place for the kids that are under 13,” Ms. Robie-Axtell said.
Chilmark Preschool needs to raise an estimated $2.8 million for its new school.
“We are phenomenally grateful,” said Rebekah Thomson, who chairs the preschool’s board of directors. “Our own dedicated preschool building will allow us to double our capacity,” she said.
The preschool also plans to add toddler care for the first time, filling a gap in up-Island child care offerings.
“There is no center-based toddler and early child care,” Ms. Thomson said. “The up-Island area, in particular, is a child care desert.”
The preschool has been operating under the Chilmark School roof for 19 years, but the K-5 school has grown in enrollment and now needs the space for its own students.
Town meeting voters unanimously supported the plan, Ms. Scott said.
Martha’s Vineyard Ocean Academy is looking to build a new ocean-going schooner to replace the aging Shenandoah.
“She’s kind of on her last legs, so to speak, and so she needs to be rebuilt,” ocean academy board member Tracey Stead said of the wooden icon built in 1964 for Robert Douglas, who later founded Vineyard Haven’s Black Dog Tavern.
“We’re still following Captain Douglas’s legacy. He designed the new ship,” Ms. Stead said at Wednesday’s celebration.
Unlike her namesake, Shenandoah II will have a metal hull, which will extend the time available for student sailing trips.
“We’ll be able to do it not only during the summer, but [for] semesters at sea,” Ms. Stead said.
Sailing trips aboard the Shenandoah have become a rite of passage for Island schoolchildren, who leave their digital devices ashore for a week or so of seagoing life.
“They have to learn skills together. They have to learn how to be part of a community, and then they come back on land [with] lifelong skills,” Ms. Stead said. “You come back changed.”
The funds for ACE MV will be available immediately to help expand its internship program, which pairs Island students with local businesses to develop careers in the building trades, early childhood education and health care.
“We are so excited to continue this work to bring more supports to high school students, young adults [and] post-secondary students, who are interested in exploring a variety of career pathways that we know exist here on the Island,” ACE MV executive director Alex Bullen Coutts said at Wednesday’s event.
Liz Pickman, who chairs the advisory board of MV Youth, said the foundation requires a rigorously detailed application from nonprofits seeking its support.
“They tell us exactly what local need they are trying to address [and] how they are going to address it,” Ms. Pickman said.
Capital project applications also require audited financial statements, information about board members and more details, Ms. Pickman said. Only then are applicants ready for the interview stage.
“We bring them in, we sit them down, and we have some tough questions,” she said.
“Any future funder can look at this process, I think, and say ‘Somebody’s already done my work for me. They have already looked at these organizations carefully. They have determined that they are fundable, and I’m not taking much of a risk at all in adding my dollars in support of the organization,’” Ms. Pickman said.
More than one recipient said the rigorous application process helped their organization.
“It’s such an incredibly thorough process [that] does nothing but truly strengthen every proposal that you come across, funded or not,” Ms. Coutts told MV Youth board members Wednesday.
Ms. Robie-Axtell agreed.
“I think they give us a blueprint for success,” she said.
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