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Grant Success Stories
Damascus Way
Damascus Way Reentry Center provides reentry leadership and services using a Christ-Centered approach.
Their core service model supports residents with: a stable housing pathway, employment and career readiness programming, and healthy community connections-all aiming at reversing the cycle of recidivism.
YMCA New Hope
https://www.ymcanorth.org/locations/new_hope_ymca
A social services organization dedicated to Youth Development, Healthy Living, and Social Responsibility.
Tree House
TreeHouse has been serving teens since 1979, helping them build relationships and resiliency rooted in living hope. We’re based in Minnesota, but we have sites across the country. Each of our sites host programs that give teens a safe space to find support and belonging. Through mentorships, retreats, and other off-site activities, teens have the opportunity to build even deeper relationships with peers and caring adults.
BeKind2People
The ultimate goal of BeKind2People is to transform hopelessness into endless possibility for families and individuals in our community. We believe that by giving people access to sustainable resources that will assist in overcoming obstacles and barriers, our program can be the catalyst that an individual or family may need to regain confidence and composure, and assist in redirecting the course of their lives. These resources include counseling services, education and nutrition programs, veteran’s assistance, help with overcoming addiction, financial and housing programs, assistance with job placement, as well as food and health programs.
PRISM
Golden Valley Community Foundation provided early partnership with PRISM to support our local community with a grant to PRISM’s program supporting kids' lunches and family support.
With volunteers staying at home to slow the spread of COVID19, the nonprofit PRISM is stretching staff to supply food to clients during the COVID19 crisis. Fewer donors are bringing in food, so the nonprofit asks people to go online and consider signing up to donate monthly.
Help at your door (HAYD)
8441 Wayzata Blvd #160, Golden Valley, MN 55426
Help At Your Door is a nonprofit serving seniors and individuals with disabilities across Minnesota’s seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. Our Store To Door grocery assistance, home support and transportation services provide help with in-home tasks and chores.
Most are unable to shop outside home under normal conditions. All are at risk of COVID-19. HAYD shops food
shelves and groceries. Volunteers personally deliver food and other essential items to their constituents. Constituents pay on a sliding scale of $0 - full cost of products delivered.
Meadowbrook Calming Corner
Last fall, the first grade teachers at Meadowbrook Elementary School in Golden Valley, along with the guidance counselor and school social worker, teamed up to focus on helping first graders learn critical self-regulation skills. In their jobs, they see children every day who have a hard time regulating their emotions for a wide variety of reasons; students may feel tired, hungry, overly-excited after playing outside, or any number of other emotions. And though the root causes may be different, one thing is consistent: kids who have a hard time self-regulating have a hard time learning. And the Meadowbrook first grade teachers wanted to help their students be even more successful in school.
In addition to using a trusted curriculum (The Zones of Regulation) to help students learn about their emotions, the teachers wanted other tools. Madeline Conrad, the school's social worker, had worked with kindergarten teachers at another Hopkins school to create Calming Corners in their classrooms. And, she saw first-hand the benefits of a designated calming space and some well-placed tools in helping kids get into the right zone to be ready to learn.
So the first grade teachers reached out to the Golden Valley Community Foundation (GVCF) for a Small Sparks grant to help build out and stock up their Calming Corners. With just $1000 from GVCF, and an additional grant from the Meadowbrook Parent Teacher Organization (PTO), they were able to do just that. Now each first grade classroom has its own Calming Corner, stocked with things like weighted blankets, stretchy bands, noise canceling headphones, beads, theraputty and more.
When children notice they are having a hard time getting into the right zone, they can go to the Calming Corner and choose a tool that will help them self-regulate. Madeline says the students love the space. "It gives them a sense that they can have more control over their emotions and that they can do things to change how they are feeling." The kids tell her things like, "It helps me when I feel frustrated to take a couple minutes break" or "I don't know how we did it without it!" And teachers have told Madeline that kids come back and are ready to go, no matter how distracted they were.
The best part is it's not just helping the first graders; it's helping the entire school. The team was able to purchase enough supplies to create a Calming Room, where students in all grades can go when they need to help regulate their emotions. As the largest elementary school in the district, this opens up these tools and resources to almost 900 students. This is truly the case of a small idea "sparking" a big improvement in our community.
Schaper Community Playground
The city recently celebrated the opening of the state’s first “outdoor fitness challenge course” in Schaper Park, just west of Theodore Wirth Park off Hwy. 55. The course allows kids and adults to race against time - and each other - through a 40-yard dash and an obstacle area. This project was supported by generous donors to the Golden Valley Community Foundation.
Twin Town Troubadours’ Travelling Fun Show
Sometimes all it takes is one small spark to build a fire. That's what happened last August at Brookview Community Center when the Twin Town Troubadours' hosted their Travelling Fun Show. Organizer Sarah Balk McGrill is a former resident of Golden Valley who owns an art consulting company and is a regular at Nye's Piano Bar in Minneapolis. She kept going back to Nye's because the artists had a knack for spontaneously involving their audiences in their performances, often getting them up off their feet to play, sing or dance along. She loved the feeling of this community - many of whom started out as strangers - being brought together by music.
But, Nye's was really just for adults and Sarah saw an opportunity to bring this experience to people of ALL ages. Her great idea had potential. She just needed a little help to bring it to life. That's where the Golden Valley Community Foundation (GVCF) comes in.
As a member of Golden Valley Arts, she knew our community would love an event that welcomed all ages to make music together. So, she applied for a GVCF Small Sparks Grant and received $1,000. She used that money to organize the Travelling Fun Show, bringing together musicians, including John Eller (Nye's Piano Bar/The Shiny Lights) and Paul Porter (The Hot Lemons/Park Ave), for a family-friendly fun-filled night.
"It was so fun to watch the kids grab instruments and play along with adults of all ages," Says Sarah. "Having the musicians interact with the crowd and ask for requests was engaging and collaborative. Plus, the new Brookview Community Center was a great space!"
Seeing this event come to life was all the encouragement Sarah needed; she's looking for additional opportunities to bring the Twin Town Troubadours to other locations in the Twin Cities. And, Sarah has a message for people out there with great ideas for Golden Valley. "Go for it!" she says. The GVCF Small Sparks Grants is a great connection that can help you transform your ideas from a spark to a fire that will warm the hearts of the community.
Martin Luther King JR. Day Celebration
Four years ago, Golden Valley resident Rose McGee watched the events of Ferguson unfold following a police officer shooting of an unarmed man. “I’m sitting there watching TV and getting very frustrated, as other people were, and wondering what I could do,” said McGee. So, she went into her kitchen and began baking sweet potato pies.
She put 30 Sweet Potato Comfort Pies into her car and drove to Ferguson. She visited the site of Brown’s shooting, where she met a young woman who had known the young man and offered her pies. McGee continued handing out pies whenever she thought, “this person seems like they need a pie", including following the shootings of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile in MN.
In 2015, McGee organized Sweet Potato Comfort Pies with support from the Golden Valley Community Foundation, an event on the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in which volunteers gathered in a Golden Valley church kitchen to bake sweet potato pies. They made 86, representing the age Dr. King would have been that year. The next day, community members gathered to share the pies and tell personal stories, an event meant to foster dialogue about race. They have repeated the event again each year since 2015, building in small changes as they learned what worked well.
After four successful years, McGee and her team of volunteer community members knew they needed to start planning for Dr. King's 90th birthday in 2019. Because she worked with the Golden Valley Community Foundation (GVCF) to organize the first MLK Jr. Day celebration, she applied for a Small Sparks Grant to cover the costs of a meeting space and a skilled facilitator who would help the group plan.
Thanks to a $1,000 Small Sparks Grant from GVCF, the group met in the summer of 2018 to make plans for the 2019 celebration. As a result, their event will be broadened with more arts programming meant to encourage dialogue. The planning group identified musicians and artists who can foster the conversation McGee and her team are aiming to spark. They have also identified ways to strengthen their existing partnership with Perpich Arts Education High School in Golden Valley. The 2019 event is shaping up to be a strong, positive community engagement event. GVCF is grateful for the opportunity to support McGee in her efforts with Sweet Potato Comfort Pie: a catalyst for caring and building community.