In its first round of grants, the Delaware COVID-19 Strategic Response Fund awarded $350,000 to 11 nonprofit organizations providing services to communities throughout the state.
Requests totaled $3.9 million.
The fund is managed by the Delaware Community Foundation. Click here for further information and to donate.
The grants will address a range of community needs during the pandemic.
Grants awarded
- Modern Maturity: $50,000 to deliver additional meals to seniors at their homes.
- Brandywine Counseling: $25,000 to meet the increased demand for recovery services.
- Family Counseling of St. Paul: $22,000 to meet the increased demand for family counseling services.
- Westside Family Healthcare: $50,000 for telehealth equipment to provide care for prenatal and chronically ill patients.
- YMCA: $50,000 for childcare for essential workers statewide.
- Easterseals of Delaware & Maryland’s Eastern Shore: $29,000 for telehealth equipment to provide child intervention services.
- CHILD, Inc: $36,000 to provide housing for battered women and their children, meeting increased demand because of social distancing requirements.
- CHEER: $38,000 delivering additional meals to seniors at their homes.
- Housing vouchers for the homeless: $50,000
- Friendship House for New Castle County – $30,000
- Community Resource Center for Sussex County – $10,000
- Catholic Charities for Kent County – $10,000
In this first round, 95 applicants requested a total of $3.9 million. The initial awards represent 23% of the total $1.5 million raised to date for the COVID-19 Strategic Response Fund, which is housed at the Delaware Community Foundation (DCF).
The fund will award an additional $350,000 in grants this week.
The goal is for the fund, which launched March 18, to provide grants for several months, said DCF President and CEO Stuart Comstock-Gay, who chairs the fund’s decision-making council.
To do that, additional dollars are needed, Comstock-Gay said.
“In the coming weeks, the needs of the community are going to evolve and grow,” he said. “We are doing deep work to make sure these dollars go to the organizations who have boots on the ground, providing food, shelter, medical attention, childcare and other essential services to the people who need help most.”
