21 Cleveland Nonprofit Organizations Awarded $227,000 in Callahan Foundation Spring 2017 Grants

The Callahan Foundation awarded $227,000 in its spring grant cycle to 21 deserving nonprofits making an impact in Greater Cleveland. These organizations include:

Beck Center for the Arts: Awarded $10,000 in support of their capital campaign Creating Our Future, intended to attract more people to experience the arts, stimulate economic development, and transform the Center into a nationally recognized destination for arts education and performances.

Boys and Girls Club of Greater Cleveland: Awarded $10,000 for their after-school dance programming. BGCC’s dance program connects 100 young people from Cleveland’s most vulnerable neighborhoods to experiences that are engaging and empowering, providing them with a much-needed physical and emotional outlet while nurturing positive character development.

Cleveland Orchestra: Awarded $25,000 for subsidization of tickets for high school students to attend their Friday Morning Concert Series during the Orchestra’s 2017-18 centennial season.

Cleveland School of the Arts: Awarded $7,500 for general operating support, allowing them to serve more than 500 disadvantaged students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) through arts advocacy, partnerships, and resources.

College Now: As Ohio’s largest and the nation’s first college access organization, College Now Greater Cleveland serves 27,000 socioeconomically diverse students and individuals yearly, aiding to increase college attainment through college access and success advising, financial aid counseling and scholarship services. The organization was awarded $7,500 for general operations.

Cuyahoga County Library: Awarded $12,000 to help implement a new library model of service, which offers free, specialized programs and resources for families of children with special needs at three of the library’s branches.

CWRU Inamori Ethics Prize Events: The Callahan Foundation supports the Inamori Ethics Prize events by awarding $20,000 and honoring this year’s recipient, Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund.

Downtown Cleveland Alliance: Awarded $10,000 for their SEEDS Workforce Readiness Program, which helps provide mens’ shelter clients with an opportunity to gain valuable work experience and ultimately overcome the significant barriers to employment and housing.

Equality Ohio: Awarded $10,000 for the Transgender Education, Safety, & Rights Project, which provides educational meetings, workshops, and trainings about the gaps in policy protections across Ohio.

Junior Achievement: Awarded $5,000 to support Junior Achievement’s 20 individual program experiences, which are hands-on, volunteer-delivered programs that focus on the concepts of financial literacy, career-readiness and entrepreneurship for over 1900 students, inspiring and preparing them to succeed in a global economy.

Karamu House: Awarded $10,000 for on-site community arts classes in dance, vocal music, and theatre; arts residencies at local schools and youth organizations; and summer arts programming that provides continuity with school year programming for over 800 children.

Lake Erie Ink: Awarded $10,000 for general operating support to help aid their mission of providing high-quality, out-of-school creative writing workshops and in-school project-based programs to improve youth’s access to the arts, encourage self-expression, and increase literacy, writing fluency and critical thinking skills by exposing them to arts-based learning opportunities.

Legal Aid Society: Awarded $20,000 to assist low-income children through Legal Aid’s “Access to Education” program in 2017, which helps to resolve educational barriers, including issues that contribute to family instability, so children can have the best chance of academic success.

Near West Theatre: Near West Theater builds relationships and engages a diversity of people in strengthening character through theatre arts. The organization was awarded $7,500 for their 2017 fall theatre arts and technical training programs that primarily serve the economically and culturally diverse children and families on Cleveland’s near west side and surrounding communities.

Scranton Road Ministries: Awarded $10,000 for their Youth Jobs Partnership, which leverages partnerships and community assets to provide 875 Cleveland young adults with comprehensive and best-practice job training and placement services over the next year.

Slavic Village Broadway Metro: Awarded $20,000 to support the position of Literacy Coordinator to help prioritize strategies to address reading and math from as early as birth through 6th grade. The literacy coordinator will work with existing P-16 programs to utilize best practices to strengthen their quality, engage those seeking to become quality programs, and help to support and market their efforts.

Thea Bowman Center: Awarded $10,000 toward their Senior Connections Outreach project, enabling the center to hire personnel to work as a team to conduct individual assessment interviews with seniors who can then be connected with community resources to meet their needs.

Youth Opportunities Unlimited: Youth Opportunities Unlimited provides school- and community-based workforce programs to youth 14-24 in Northeast Ohio who live in families near, at or below poverty level. Y.O.U. was awarded $10,000 for their school-based workforce programs in academic year 2017-18.

YWCA: Awarded $10,000 for their Nurturing Independence & Aspirations (NIA) program, which provides comprehensive supportive services and case management for formerly homeless youth and young adults who are living at YWCA’s permanent supportive housing residence, Independence Place.