Rotary Club of Spartanburg awards $30,000 in Youth Opportunity Grants
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
By Ryan Edward Gaylord
The Rotary Club of Spartanburg is providing grants to nine local non-profit organizations and awarding a total amount of $30,000 to help them with their important work.
This year the Youth Opportunity Grant Committee received fifteen grant proposals from area non-profits requesting a total of $67,950. We thank all those who made requests and applaud their efforts to improve the lives of youth within our community. From those fifteen worthy organizations the members of the Youth Opportunity Grant Committee were tasked with awarding $30,000.
The task undertaken by the committee is a difficult one, and I applaud and thank the committee members for their diligence through this process. I would like to recognize our members who comprise the committee. They are: Kathryn Boucher; Vic Bailey; William Gray; Don Williams; and Bill Brasington. These committee members diligently and thoughtfully reviewed all of the applications to find the programs that would create the largest positive impact on our youth and community.
Here are the award recipients and an overview of their programs:
Bethlehem Center was awarded $5,000.00
The Bethlehem Center has served the Spartanburg community since 1930. The Bethlehem Center serves low to moderate income families – with a specific interest in the Highland Community - providing an array of free services designed to prepare, engage, and encourage while building relationships, fostering partnerships, and advocating for the needs of the community.
This grant will be used to support the “S.O.A.R. Summer Camp” program. The S.O.A.R. Summer Camp is a 7-week free program for low- and moderate-income youth ages 5 to 13. It will provide academic support, tutoring, leadership development, goal setting and financial literacy activities with field trips to take part in art and dance education.
The program anticipates serving 130 children in Spartanburg over the Summer with 50 children attending each camp session.
Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas, Inc. was awarded $2,000.00
The Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas seeks to provide comprehensive support and loving compassion to families whose children are battling cancer, to improve their overall quality of life, and is celebrating its twentieth year of service to the Spartanburg Community this year.
This award will be used to support the families of 20 children in the City of Spartanburg who are and will be in various stages of treatment, remission, and survivorship this year. The grant will help pay toward hard costs for frequent, routine trips for treatment in Greenville or beyond, as well as the provision of emotional support to the children – our superheroes – and their families.
Girls on the Run Upstate SC was awarded $2,000.00
Girls on the Run inspires girls to be joyful, healthy, and confident using a fun, experienced-based curriculum, which creatively integrates running.
This grant will provide twenty girls in Spartanburg’s Title 1 schools with the opportunity to participate in the Girls on the Run program in the upcoming school year. These girls will receive 20 weeks of programming free of charge and will be given tools to increase their activity levels, develop positive self-perception of their academic abilities, and reduce anxiety and depression. In short – these girls will be helped to discover their own limitless potential.
Healthy Smiles of Spartanburg was awarded $2,000.00
Healthy Smiles of Spartanburg serves to advocate and promote the health of Spartanburg County children by providing community dental health screenings, education, and free oral health services to qualifying children. Healthy Smiles of Spartanburg collaborates to improve the health and futures of low-income, uninsured children in Spartanburg County by providing access to a school-linked oral health care program, prevention and education. In addition, they schedule, organize, and provide financial assistance for referrals for children in need of emergency referrals for specialized treatment that will require the use of sedation.
In 2021 Healthy Smiles of Spartanburg served 580 children, and fourteen of those children who required specialized treatment were supported with Rotary Youth Opportunity Grant funds from last year’s award.
HALTER was awarded $5,000.00
Halter seeks to enhance the lives of children with challenges through Equine Assisted Services.
This grant will support its collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Upstate, My Brother’s Keeper, and BLOOM of the Upstate to provide equine assisted experiential learning to socially, emotionally, and economically vulnerable youth to help incorporate new knowledge, skills, and abilities for self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
Palmetto Council – Boy Scouts of America was awarded $3,500.00
This grant will support the Palmetto Council’s partnership with the Spartanburg Housing Authority and Mt. Moriah Baptist Church by providing youth from Prince Hall Apartments with an opportunity to experience character development programs at the weeklong summer camp held at the Glendale Outdoor Leadership School. These funds will allow over 25 youth to participate in this summer camp experience through which they will be biking, bouldering, fishing, and hiking and engaging in other activities focused on health, safety, first-aid, physical activity, nutrition, and outdoor skills.
Last Summer the Palmetto Council used its award to partner with the Spartanburg Housing Authority to remove the largest historic barrier to Northside youth participation in the camp –transportation. Thanks to our support eight youth from Cleveland Academy of Leadership were able to participate in archery, shooting bb guns and sling-shots, indoor rock-wall climbing, and hikes at Glendale Outdoor Leadership School.
Spartanburg Methodist College was awarded $3,500.00
SMC strives to serve students who may not otherwise have a shot at college, and its mission is to transform the lives of students in a values-oriented, student-centered atmosphere.
This grant will support SMC’s holiday housing initiative. Recognizing that some students do not have a safe housing to which to return during the college’s four-week holiday break, SMC will open its dorms to thirty homeless or at-risk youth enrolled at the school. These funds will provide room and board, electricity, heat and food to students during the four-week holiday break so that these students will have the best opportunity to continue their studies in the spring semester and achieve their goal of a college education.
Upstate Workforce Futures Corp. was awarded $2,000.00
Upstate Workforce Futures Corp. seeks to enhance and sustain a successful and innovative workforce system in the Upstate of South Carolina and to provide financial and project support to the Upstate Workforce Development system that meets the needs of businesses in Cherokee, Spartanburg, and Union Counties and provides quality jobs for job seekers.
This grant will be used to provide driver’s education training to students involved in the ACHIEVE program at USC Upstate and the Intentional Program at Broome High School. These funds will relieve a barrier to employment by making the modalities of transportation more practically accessible – allowing these young people to be punctual, and productive employees with a bright working future.
YMCA of Greater Spartanburg was awarded $5,000.00
The mission of the YMCA is to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build a healthy spirit, mind, and body for all. Its three areas of impact include youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility.
These funds will be used to provide FREE tutoring services at all six of the YMCA’s Spartanburg Afterschool Program sites for the 2022-23 school year to support and improve the participants’ academic performance. Specifically, these funds will help the YMCA employ qualified, trained tutors to provide individual and small group tutoring services three days per week, two hours per day, for thirty weeks. Tutors will be either certified teachers, retired teachers, teacher assistants, education majors from local colleges, or college students who receive training and supervision from a certified teacher.
Last year, the YMCA use its grant award to provide swimming lessons to sixty children and teens from low-income homes in Spartanburg County, and to provide lifeguard certification classes to teens from the Northside and Highland communities.
Youth Opportunity Grants have been a line item in the Spartanburg Rotary Club budget for many years with funding coming from member support. Additional funding comes from the annual Spartanburg Sings event, which brings together middle school students from across the county for a one-afternoon musical performance. Spartanburg Sings has been another way the Spartanburg Rotary Club serves youth, and it has become very popular among middle school administrators, faculty and students.