The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, a charitable organization dedicated to enriching the quality of life in Middle Tennessee and beyond, announces $2,664,888 in grants to 439 local nonprofit organizations as part of the 2021 annual grantmaking process.
In last week’s edition, the Ledger published the grant recipients from A to N. Here is the rest of the list.
For more information on the grant process and for a complete list of 2021 grant recipients, go to www.CFMT.org.
Recipients, N-Z:
• Nashville Adult Literacy Council: To teach reading, writing and English-speaking skills to adults in Nashville.
• Nashville Ballet: To provide anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion training to Nashville Ballet’s administrative staff, dancers, and board of directors.
• Nashville Cat Rescue: To spay or neuter 1,200 cats so that they may be put up for adoption.
• Nashville Children’s Alliance Inc.: To reduce the trauma of child abuse by facilitating a multidisciplinary team to detect, investigate, prosecute and treat child abuse.
• Nashville Civic Design Center: To increase public health, connectivity and safety through community engagement, education and activation in creating successful public spaces throughout Nashville.
• Nashville Coaching Coalition: The Coaches’ Leadership Academy equips coaches and educators to be better mentors/leaders and improve the mental/emotional health of children.
• Nashville Conflict Resolution Center: To support free, restorative and trauma-informed mediation services to stabilize Middle Tennesseans by preventing eviction and insolvency.
• Nashville Diaper Connection: The “No Child Wet Behind” program provides baby diapers to moms that otherwise might not have them.
• Nashville Film Festival: To pair 15 underserved young women with entertainment professionals to write, record, and film an original song and music video.
• Nashville General Hospital Foundation: To provide comprehensive, easy-to-understand, diabetic education to Nashville General Hospital patients who are at high risk for diabetic related complications.
• Nashville Humane Association: We want to meet a community need that includes access to basic veterinary care (Vaccines, Rabies, Microchips).
• Nashville In Harmony: Funds support building community and promoting social change through music for our LGBTQ+ youth chorus, Major Minors.
• Nashville Jazz Workshop: Jazz AM will provide 11 immersive and interactive jazz performances free of charge for families with children ages 2-10.
• Nashville Launch Pad: We provide LGBTQ-affirming emergency shelter for young adults experiencing homelessness.
• Nashville Opera Association: To support a continuing partnership between Nashville Opera and Tennessee State University that expands career pathways for Black artists.
• Nashville Public Education Foundation: NPEF will fund College Access Champions Fellowship for teachers to serve as college access advocates within their spheres of influence.
• Nashville Public Library Foundation: Nashville Public Library’s STUDIO NPL is a workforce development program for teens emphasizing hands-on, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, math).
• Nashville Public Radio: To launch a vital daily independent local news program reflecting the voices of all across Middle Tennessee.
• Nashville Public Television: “Aging Matters” will focus on the major issues facing older adults with two documentaries: “LGBTQI Aging” and “Women and Aging.”
• Nashville Repertory Theatre, Inc.: Provide professional theater arts education for youth ages 7-23 through youth impact programs in schools and throughout the community.
• Nashville Shakespeare Festival: Provide affordable or free public and school performances of RICHARD III, with preparatory in-school student workshops and free online guidebook.
• Nashville Steam Preservation Society: Preservation and rehabilitation of NC&StL steam locomotive No. 576’s frame by media blasting and repainting.
• Nashville Symphony Association: To provide free, high-quality instrument instruction and music education experiences to 7,000 students in Nashville.
• Nashville Teacher Residency: To provide high-quality coursework on culturally sustaining methods of instruction for diverse individuals who will become licensed teachers.
• Nashville Tools for Schools: To provide custom-made classroom furnishings at a deep discount to retail price for MNPS schools.
• Nashville Tree Foundation: North Nashville Community Engagement and Tree Maintenance Fellowship and Internship Program.
• National Museum of African American Music: To connect up to 1,500 Nashville youth and about 350 seniors with professional musician teaching artists to learn, perform and engage.
• Nations Ministry Center: To provide citizenship support services for 100 immigrants applying for US citizenship.
• Native American Indian Association of Tennessee: To provide emergency housing, utility, food, and health care assistance to impoverished Native American citizens of Tennessee.
• NeedLink Nashville: To provide emergency financial assistance for low-income single-parent households with young children, preventing eviction and homelessness.
• Neighbor 2 Neighbor: To provide neighborhood leadership development training for 1,000 residents across Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County.
• Neighborhood Health: To create a food pharmacy at our Downtown clinic, to provide portable, shelf-stable and nutritious food to persons experiencing homelessness.
• New Horizons Corporation: Educational equipment for clients with intellectual and physical disabilities to use as a learning tool in New Horizons Day Center.
• New Level CDC: To provide housing counseling to more than 200 families seeking to find stable homes and homeownership in Nashville.
• Notes for Notes, Inc.: To provide music and social emotional education to youth so music may become a profoundly positive influence in their lives.
• Nurses for Newborns of Tennessee: To prevent infant mortality, child abuse and neglect through home visitation by registered nurses.
• Nurture the Next: to provide evidence-based home visiting and best practice parent coaching to vulnerable Davidson County families.
• Oasis Center, Inc.: To provide a spectrum of in-person and virtual programming, including clinical mental health services, for LGBTQ+ youth.
• Old School Farm: To employ adults with disabilities in a supportive environment and provide families in need with nutritious, farm-fresh produce.
• Open Table Nashville: To provide outreach services and supplies to approximately 4,500 people experiencing homelessness.
• Operation Stand Down Tennessee: To provide career services and transition assistance to Veterans, empowering and equipping them to gain and sustain purposeful employment.
• Our Place Nashville: To recruit 40 older adults to live as companions with our residents with developmental disabilities in eight new Friendship Houses.
• OZ Arts: To engage diverse Nashville artists in creating adventurous contemporary performances, premiered in a two-week festival attended by 1,000 patrons.
• Palmer Home Family Care: To provide personal and baby essentials for 20 mothers reentering the community after prison release and/or reunifying with their child.
• Park Center, Inc.: Provide biweekly art therapy sessions for 30 persons to move forward from mental illness, trauma, homelessness and/or addiction.
• Pass The Beauty: To provide needed services and support for 50 women who have experienced domestic abuse, violence, poverty and lack positive resources.
• PENCIL: To use PENCIL Connect to provide engaging career exploration and student-adult mentorship opportunities to MNPS high school youth.
• People Loving Nashville: Providing life-saving medicine to prevent drug overdose within Davidson Country’s most vulnerable, unhoused community.
• Pet Community Center: The Community Cat Program will trap-neuter-return (TNR) 2,000 community cats in Davidson County.
• Priest Lake Community Baptist Church: To provide life skills recreation for community children ages 3 to 12 in a small safe environment during the summer.
• Project Return, Inc.: To support the successful new beginnings of people returning from incarceration by providing employment opportunities and wraparound services.
• Project Transformation Tennessee: To provide an eight-week summer literacy program for more than 200 children in under-resourced neighborhoods across Middle Tennessee.
• Proverbs 12:10 Animal Rescue: To provide medication and vaccines for rescued dogs and cats before adoption.
• Rebuilding Together Nashville: To support home repairs and wraparound services for low-income homeowners in the Bordeaux area of Nashville.
• Rejoice School of Ballet: Rejoice Ballet mentors dancers from all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds through classical ballet instruction and positive youth development programs.
• Renewal House, Inc.: To provide gender-specific intensive outpatient addiction treatment for 60 women of low income, including specialized pregnant and postpartum women’s programming.
• Restore Small Groups: To improve community health by providing high-quality, low-cost, peer to peer support groups focused on holistic well-being for 50 people.
• Rocketown of Middle Tennessee, Inc.: To provide mentoring to marginalized teens from low-income communities, helping them to find peace/purpose away from the influence of gangs/drugs.
• Safe Haven Family Shelter: To provide academic and social-emotional supports to children experiencing homelessness, reducing the negative impact of housing instability.
• Salama Urban Ministries: To improve each child’s life trajectory through academic enrichment, the performing arts and character development.
• Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee: To provide equitable access to nutritious food for food-insecure children.
• Senior Ride Nashville: To provide 2,800 trips via contract drivers for non-driving seniors, ensuring access to essential services regardless of volunteer availability.
• Sexual Assault Center: To provide specialized therapy, advocacy and support to 30 low-income girls and women who have been sexually assaulted.
• Shower The People: To provide 250 mobile showers and loads of laundry to individuals living on the streets/in encampments throughout Davidson County.
• Siloam Health: To provide 83 culturally-sensitive, affordable, medical visits to refugees in Middle Tennessee who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
• Small World Yoga: Small World Yoga will bring trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness to populations who are disadvantaged and systematically oppressed in Middle Tennessee.
• Society of St. Andrew: To glean excess good food and share it with hungry Tennessee neighbors.
• Soles4Souls: To provide a new pair of athletic shoes to 500 children experiencing homelessness in Middle Tennessee
• Southeast Community Capital dba Pathway Lending: Provide classes to 400+ entrepreneurs to help strengthen and expand businesses, 24 businesses will receive access to capital.
• Southern Alliance for People and Animal Welfare: To provide lifesaving spay/neuter, vaccinations, deworming & other wellness services to pet owners struggling with poverty, housed or homeless.
• Southern Word Inc.: To reach 860 youth participants out of school through virtual and in-person writing and music workshops.
• Special Olympics Tennessee: Young Athletes is an early childhood program for children with and without intellectual disabilities, ages 2 to 7 years old.
• St. Luke’s Community House: To deliver 18,000 healthy meals to 80 seniors living in our community over a 12-month period.
• Starlings Nashville: The guiding concept of providing leadership opportunities for girls ages 10-18 regardless of their socioeconomic background.
• STEM Preparatory Academy: Our mental health counseling program is designed to raise student achievement by addressing mental health barriers to learning and development.
• Street Theatre Company: To provide free or low-cost youth theater programming to the underserved through our Class Act Dramatics Program.
• Strick’s Gift: To efficiently provide infant clothing to 600 babies born into poverty in Nashville in partnership with local hospital social workers.
• Stronger Than My Father, Inc.: Provide supplemental reading instruction to help restore lost skills during virtual learning for 100 children enrolled in our afterschool program.
• Survivor Fitness Foundation: To provide 175 rehabilitation sessions to low-income and minority cancer survivors, addressing adverse side effects of their cancer diagnosis and treatments.
• Teach for America: To deliver a summer educational experience that provides quality educational learning hours for both MNPS students and TFA corps members.
• Tennessee Arts Academy Foundation: Our project will target arts teachers in rural areas that lack resources and awareness of TAA’s continuing education programs.
• Tennessee Breast Cancer Coalition: Our program provides individual financial relief to breast cancer patients struggling with medical debt in the state of Tennessee.
• Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence: Funds will assist with providing legal services/referrals to wrap around services for 15 immigrant sexual assault and trafficking survivors.
• Tennessee Craft: To provide free handcrafted arts activities serving over 2,000 children/families at our spring and fall Tennessee Craft Fairs’ Kids’ Tent, Nashville.
• Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance: To provide leadership development for 18 teachers (nine Middle TN) from diverse backgrounds to address systemic inequities impacting vulnerable students.
• Tennessee Environmental Council: To engage over 20,000 volunteers in planting 100,000 native tree seedlings across Tennessee, half of these in Middle Tennessee.
• Tennessee Foreign Language Institute Fund, Inc.: To provide free English Language Training to Tennessee’s immigrant and refugee community through the ESL to Go program.
• Tennessee Higher Education Initiative: Serving our community through student success and reentry services for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals.
• Tennessee Historical Society: Tennessee History Day provides the opportunity for students and educators to participate in project-based learning in the humanities.
• Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition: TIRRC’s citizenship program provides affordable assistance to eligible low-income immigrants with completing their naturalization applications to become U.S. citizens.
• Tennessee Innocence Project: To support wrongful conviction litigation for indigent Middle Tennesseans – ensuring justice for all means all.
• Tennessee Justice for Our neighbors: TNJFON provides humanitarian immigration legal services to survivors of violence, persecution, and poverty and informs the public about immigration matters.
• Tennessee Kidney Foundation: To provide transportation to lifesaving dialysis treatments for 11 low-income, older adults with no other means to access medical care.
• Tennessee Lions Charities, Inc.: Our goal is to provide free vision screenings and follow-up to children (12-72 months) in the middle Tennessee area.
• Tennessee Performing Arts Center: To bring professional artist residencies to pre-K classrooms: 30-minute sessions offered 2x/week for 6-7 weeks.
• Tennessee Poison Center: To educate parents and health care professionals about self-medicating practices in children and adolescents to prevent medication errors and poisonings.
• Tennessee Voices for Victims: To distribute 29 copies of “Acquaintance Rape: The Untold Truth” to Middle Tennessee middle and high schools.
• Tennessee Youth Courts, Inc.: To provide training, technical assistance to MNPS as they implement youth court programs in middle and high schools this year.
• The Branch of Nashville: The Branch helps culturally diverse, under-resourced families work toward self-sufficiency through food support so everyone can thrive.
• The Bridge Ministry, Inc: To bridge the gap and meet the needs of the homeless, under-resourced individuals, families and students experiencing food insecurity issues.
• The Build Up Foundation: To provide Free tutoring/ACT Prep for Metro Nashville students who have fell behind due to Covid19/virtual learning in at risk communities.
• The Contributor, Inc.: To support success of homeless clients in our C.O.V.E.R. housing program through acquiring a SOAR and Certified Peer Recovery Specialist.
• The Educators’ Cooperative: To provide Professional Development for K-12 teachers on Antiracist Teaching, Learning and Leading practices for implementation in virtual and in-person classrooms.
• The F.I.N.D. Design: To build leaders that will inspire systematic change for 75 girls of color through healing circles, mentoring, engagement and education.
• The Family Center, Inc.: To provide “Resources for Success” to encourage healthy parent/child interaction for 339 families, including books/games, translation/translator services and parent leadership opportunities.
• The Healing NET Foundation: To distribute 1,000 resource packets containing Healing NET’s neuroendocrine cancer (NET) specific publications to partner organizations; health care providers; patients and caregivers.
• The HELP Center: To provide financial assistance to low-to-moderate families in need of emergency financial assistance.
• The Nashville Food Project, Inc.: Through our Meals program, TNFP prepares and shares from-scratch, nutritious meals to share with our children and youth-serving community partners.
• The New Beginnings Center: To provide free and affordable personal training, nutritional education, and wellness tools to women with lower income levels across Davidson County.
• The Next Door: To provide medication-assisted treatment (MAT) services for 60 women with opioid and alcohol use disorders.
• The Onsite Foundation: A virtual training and support group for Black mental health professionals.
• The Porch Writers’ Collective: “Immigrants Write” amplifies the literary voices of immigrants and refugees in Middle Tennessee by offering supportive/inclusive creative writing workshops.
• The Theater Bug: To engage 25 students in an original theater production addressing drug use, racism, and grief through the high school lens.
• Thistle Farms: To provide housing, and job training to women survivors of trafficking, prostitution, and addiction.
• TN State Parks Conservancy: To provide unique, immersive experiences in nature and increase literacy opportunities for inner-city and rural youth living in poverty.
• Travellers Rest Historic House Museum: Commissioning a Ground Penetrating Radar survey and accompanying report on the historic landscape, which is essential for long-term planning.
• Turnip Green Creative Reuse: To divert 500,000 lbs. of materials from Nashville’s landfill and redirect them to 20,000 reusers.
• United Way of Middle Tennessee, Inc. To provide children, birth to5, with age-appropriate books to build a strong foundation for literacy proficiency and academic success.
• UpRise Nashville: Post-graduation coaching for education and career development for UpRise Graduates who have launched careers and are emerging from financial poverty.
• Urban Green Lab: To grow a culture of environmental justice learning in Nashville so all of us can thrive.
• Vanderbilt University: Telling the Story of Nashville’s Fort Negley through Storymaps
• W.O. Smith/Nashville Community Music School: To provide a residential summer music camp for 60 W.O. Smith students.
• Walden’s Puddle: To provide care/treatment to Tennessee wildlife in need, with the goal of returning the rehabilitated animals back to the wild.
• Walk/Bike Nashville Inc: Our Ambassador program will identify, train and support residents along Murfreesboro to advocate for better transportation for their community.
• Water Walkers: To provide a life-changing, 12-month Leadership Training program for Edgehill neighborhood teens using work experiences and life skills workshops.
• Wayne Reed Christian Childcare Center: To cover the costs of toys and other learning materials to be used on our playground.
• Welcome Home Ministries: To provide supported employment services for 110 clients seeking recovery in Welcome Home Ministries’ alcohol and drug recovery support program.
• Westminster Home Connection: To develop a group to do neighbor-helping-neighbor construction work for older adults to age-in-place.
• YMCA of Middle Tennessee: To purchase and implement a national, data-driven curriculum to promote the social-emotional learning of youth in YMCA elementary school programs.
• You Have The Power...Know How to Use It, Inc.: To provide victim impact education to incarcerated women or transitioning from incarceration.
• Young Leaders Council, Inc.: To replenish the Nashville volunteer leadership base and facilitate board training for young professionals seeking to make a lasting impact.
• Youth Empowerment through Arts and Humanities: To provide enriching experiences that help 525 youth build character and self-esteem through rigorous music education and frank conversation.
• Youth Villages: To provide critical needs and services for 20-25 youth aging out of foster care participating in Youth Villages’ LifeSet program.
• YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee: To provide emergency shelter and wrap-around supportive services to over 200 victims of domestic violence and 150 children.