One year ago, the Westchester Community Foundation formed its Westchester Covid-19 Response Fund to address the needs of people, businesses and nonprofits in the county.
Today, the Fund will issue its 10th round of funding, totaling $433,500. It will go to three nonprofits — Episcopal Charities, Hillside Food Outreach and the Westchester Library System — selected for their focus on addressing community food insecurity and promoting digital accessibility for students and workers, many of whom have had to adjust to learning and working remotely throughout the past year.
“Throughout the pandemic, we have worked closely with our nonprofit community to identify and address several ongoing needs, from access to technology and food insecurity to workforce development and access to legal services,” said Laura Rossi, executive director of the Westchester Community Foundation. “This latest round of grants will help deliver services faster and more efficiently, and we will continue to stand side-by-side with our community partners to help families and businesses in need.”
The $200,000 for Episcopal Charities will support major food pantries in Westchester through an expanded bulk-purchasing program, providing benefits such as reduced prices, guaranteed supplies of certain items and delivery. It will also support a plan to provide similar benefits to smaller pantries throughout the county.
The Hillside Food Outreach will receive $75,000 to provide home deliveries to 750 families who are homebound and/or have specific dietary needs that are not always able to be met by food pantries. The families are referred to the delivery program by Westchester County services or local medical facilities.
The Westchester Library System will utilize its $158,500 portion of the funding to supply 250 families with digital devices, internet services and technology training in order to make technological resources and learning and working from home accessible. Of those families, 200 are involved in the Head Start program and 50 are experiencing homelessness.
In the past year, the Foundation has raised $2 million for the Covid-19 Response Fund. It has distributed $1.4 million of that across more than 40 Westchester nonprofits since April 2020.
According to Rossi, the organization has also continued its usual grant funding from its permanent source of funds throughout the past year. A total of $2 million was disbursed through 73 grant awards to nonprofits.
