NEWS RELEASE
BARRIE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
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Since April the Barrie Community Foundation has distributed Rapid Micro Grants of $1,000 to more than 20 Barrie charities. Granted through the Barrie Community Foundation’s Crisis Fund, these monies are helping to ease the strain of a pandemic.
“It has been a tremendous privilege for the Barrie Community Foundation to have been able to step forward and help the Barrie community by distributing the monies with which we were entrusted by the citizens of Barrie,” said Marshall Green, Barrie Community Foundation, Chair. “We have been able to provide 21 organizations and agencies who have been struggling to help the disadvantaged in our community during this unprecedented crisis.”
Throughout the pandemic, the Barrie Community Foundation has granted more than $500,000 to organizations – on the front lines of the COVID-19 response. These funds have come from different streams in the Barrie Community Foundation – our endowment fund grants, our local Community Crisis Fund, and the Federal Emergency Community Support Fund that we administered on a local level. These grants ranged from $1000-$20,000.
“We are grateful to receive a $1000 Rapid-Micro Grant through the Community Crisis Fund,” says Suzanna McCarthy, Executive Director, John Howard Society of Simcoe and Muskoka. “Now we will be able to replace a piece of aging technology which is no longer fully functional. This single improvement will have an incredible impact on our agency, allowing us to spend more time focusing on serving our community.”
The organizations receiving Rapid Micro Grants this year include:
- Gilda’s Club
- YouthReach
- The Gilbert Centre
- Christmas Cheer B
- arrie Native Friendship Centre
- Glowing Hearts Give and Get
- The John Howard Society of Simcoe and Muskoka
- Catholic Family Services
- Redwood Park Communities
- Elizabeth Fry Society
- Hospice Simcoe
- Theatre By The Bay Women and Children's Shelter of Barrie
- The David Busby Centre
- Youth Haven
- Epilepsy (Ontario) Simcoe County
- Big Brothers Big Sisters of Barrie and District
- Camphill Communities Ontario
- Season's Centre for Grieving Children
- Child Advocacy Centre
- New Path Youth and Family Services
“We’re grateful to be the conduit to get these funds out, supporting safe shelter for those fleeing abuse, food and warm clothes for those in need, technological support for seniors in isolation so they can communicate better with family and friends, retraining for those who lost their jobs in the pandemic and so much more,” added Green.
Charitable donations to support Barrie’s Community Crisis Fund can be made online here.
To set up your own endowment fund that allows you to give back and support your community year after year, please contact Sarah Ingram, Executive Director of the Barrie Community Foundation, at 705- 816-6368.
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