Westchester Community Foundation awards $222K to 10 local nonprofits

The Hartsdale-based Westchester Community Foundation (WCF) has announced its second round of grants for the year, with a total of $222,600 awarded to 10 local nonprofits.

The largest grant, $70,000, went to the Westchester Community College Foundation and will be used to provide scholarships for students attending the college.

A $50,000 grant to Lifting Up Westchester (LUW) is for a pilot program to help prepare homeless individuals for stable housing. The program will offer life skills training for 300 single homeless adults and help individuals find permanent housing and access employment training and support.

Anahaita Kotval, executive director of LUW, said: “We are committed to finding permanent solutions to end homelessness in Westchester and are excited to find a community partner who shares our goal.”

The other grants for April were: $15,000 to the Westchester Children’s Association to train youngsters in advocacy skills; $3,600 to the Westchester Parks Foundation to help homeless boys from White Plains and Mount Vernon attend summer camp; $7,000 to the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts to support a series of 11 summer concerts focused on the “Giants of Germanic Music;” and $16,000 to the Clay Art Center to support a one-year residency for an emerging ceramic artist from Westchester.

Additional grants were $5,000 to the White Plains organization Downtown Music at Grace to support three free concerts of music by German composers; $18,000 to SPACE on Ryder Farm to provide opportunities for emerging artists from Westchester; $13,000 to The Picture House Regional Film Center in Pelham to support a program for young people at risk of dropping out of Mt. Vernon schools; and $25,000 to the Pro Bono Partnership in support of legal education programs for Westchester nonprofits.

The first WCF grants for 2019 had been announced in February. The organization is a division of The New York Community Trust.