MARION, OH -- Marion Community Foundation is offering grant opportunities for two critical areas of our community -- Racial Equity & Justice Grant Program and the TEACH Grant Program. Both programs are currently accepting applications, now through March 10.
“Marion Community Foundation’s vision is a generous, educated, healthy, collaborative, and vibrant community,” said Dean Jacob, president and CEO of Marion Community Foundation. “To achieve that vision, our core values must include racial equity and justice and supporting our classroom teachers.”
The Racial Equity & Justice Grant Program is Marion Community Foundation’s newest offering.According to Jacob, the Foundation has earmarked $50,000 in awards specifically for the Racial Equity & Justice grant program. This amount, he said, could be distributed in full to one organizational recipient or in several smaller grants to multiple organizations. The decisions on how much and to whom to award grants will be made by a special committee of Marion Community Foundation and its board of directors.
“Marion Community Foundation realizes that racial equity and justice is a multifaceted issue and achieving it will take much time and effort by numerous people on the local, state, national, and even international levels,” said Jacob. “This grant program, by itself, will not solve the problems of racial inequity and injustice; but, we hope, it will create another ripple in the evolution of our society to become more equitable and just.”
Evaluated on both community need and a clearly stated effectiveness of meeting that need, Racial Equity & Justice Grants will be awarded in a competitive process to charitable, educational, governmental, and religious entities in Marion County. Grants may be to new or existing programs. Interested applicants are encouraged to review the complete grant purpose at the Foundation’s website, www.MarionCommunityFoundation.org.
The Teaching, Educating And Classroom Help (TEACH) grants program, now in its second year, offers awards to local teachers to make area classrooms interesting, stimulating, and impactful for students. The purpose of the TEACH Grants is to provide funding to teachers, or small teams of classroom teachers, to foster and develop programs, projects, events, or lessons for kindergarten through 12th grade.
Any Marion County, Ohio, public or private school teacher who instructs children, kindergarten through high school, is eligible to apply. Grants are intended to fund innovative or creative programs, projects, events, or lessons in the classroom that are not supported by regular school budgets.
“Classroom teachers have great ideas and creative solutions to meet their students’ needs,” said Jacob, himself a former teacher. “The TEACH Grant program can help teachers launch innovative and motivational ideas that may go unfunded because of a school’s tight budget.”
Applications for both the 2021 TEACH Grants and Racial Equity and Justice Grant programs are available on Marion Community Foundation’s website at www.marioncommunityfoundation.org and both programs have deadlines of March 10 at noon. Selection committees will review the applications in April and announce recipients in May. Updates will be available on the Foundation’s social media channels—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Additional information is available by contacting Julie Prettyman, Marion Community Foundation’s Director of Programs, at 740-387-9704 or julieprettyman@marioncommunityfoundation.org. Marion Community Foundation is located at 504 S. State Street. Its offices are open weekdays 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.