Community Foundation makes awards

Published 7:59 pm Friday, November 13, 2009

The Dalton-Whitfield Community Foundation will award $24,500 in grants to 11 local nonprofit organizations, targeting an array of causes throughout Whitfield County.

“We appreciate all of the organizations that submitted grant requests during this cycle,” said Murray Bandy, chairman of the foundation’s grants committee. “We wish that we could give all of our applicants the monies that they requested, but our grant funds are limited.”

The foundation will award $5,000 to Friends of the GreenHouse, an organization that provides financial, educational, judicial and clinical support to child victims of sexual and severe physical abuse.

“We believe in the great work that the GreenHouse is doing and are proud to support them by giving them $5,000 to help set up an in-house office space for a new child advocate,” said Bandy.

“The grant will allow us to purchase a desk, chair, phone, computer and file cabinet for our new sexual response team assistant,” said Dana Keith, GreenHouse executive director. “It’s very important that our victim services be centralized — law enforcement, Department of Family and Child Services, counseling, tutoring, prosecution, etc., all under one roof. It makes the process less traumatic for the victim.”

Keith said the GreenHouse will soon launch a capital campaign to raise funds to build a much-needed newer facility that will be behind the health department. Officials anticipate a two-year campaign to raise the money.

The foundation will also award $1,000 to Save Our American Raptors (SOAR), an organization founded in the early 1980s that educates the public about aerial predators and their role in nature. John Stokes and his wife Dale conduct most of the presentations in our region.

“In addition to our summer appearances at Rock City, we take our live birds of prey into schools, state parks and civic meetings,” John Stokes said. “We focus on educating the public on the importance of hawks, eagles, owls and falcons, and the necessity of protecting their habitat.”