2016 GRANT RECIPIENTS

Junior League of Alexandria Grants 2016
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The Junior League grants committee, in its 15th year, awarded $8,300 in grants to different non-profit organizations in our focus area which
 address women and children’s issues. These much 
needed grants allow the Junior League to spread our mission
 through other community organizations. Our 
committee has awarded the following grants:

• New Life International Outreach for Central Louisiana Heart Gallery: Grant money will be used to start a traveling photo exhibit of children who are available for adoption and foster care. The mission is to raise awareness for foster care adoption and to help find forever families for children waiting to be adopted in Louisiana.
• Central Louisiana Arts & Healthcare: Grant money will be used in a partnership with a new Louisiana enterprise –The Doll Kind –to bring soft cotton dolls to pediatric patients in our area with a “pay it forward” challenge. Each doll will come with a set of “kindness”charms that can be given to others to say thank you or to pay kindness forward.
• Fit Families for Cenla: Grant money will be used to promote the commitment of Fit Families to educating and motivating families in Cenla to lead healthier lifestyles through offering programs that promote physical activity and positive nutritional
  choices.
• Next is Girls Scouts of LA – Pines to the Gulf: Grant money will be used to cover registration for some girls who might not be able to experience girl scouts, for their sashes and
  curriculum for the program.
• T.R.E.E. House Children’s Museum: Grant money will be used to fund field trips for underserved children and schools, as well as families in the Central Louisiana area.
• Volunteers of America: Grant money will used to fund their Parents as Teachers program. Providing parents with the tools needed to help their developing children by in home visits, group visits, and parents are able to utilize their Family Resource Center.
• United Way of Central Louisiana: Grant money will be used to embarked on a campaign to increase the readiness of children for school by a Reading Rocks program. Since 2014, the United Way has given away books at different local events. Their two main events are Reading on the Red and Seasons Readings. As well as United Way Readers where volunteers go into childcare centers and read to the children. They purchase books for this program and want to continue getting new material for their events.
• Food Bank of Central Louisiana: Grant money will be used  in one of their main projects is the BackPack Program. The volunteers fill backpacks and are distributed to those students in our area that are identified as high risk for hunger. These backpacks are sent home with food over the weekend, as most of us know their only meals during the week come from breakfast and lunch at school. The Food Bank makes it their mission to ensure these children do not go hungry over the weekends.
• Montessori Educational Center: Grant money will be used to expand their mathematical concepts for their students in six classrooms. Montessori’s mission is to educate and nurture the whole child and instill the love of learning.
• First United Methodist’s Farmers Market: Grant money will be used to start their Farmers’ Market Kids Club. Their goal is to educate and encourage the community’s children to be curious about local food and to see the value of healthy, locally made products.
• NextSTEP: Grant money will be used to host a teen dating violence awareness and prevention training, A fight we can win, to cadets enrolled in the National Guard’s Youth Challenge Program and to youth about to transition from the foster care system to independent living.
• Girls on the Run Central Louisiana: Grant money will be used to support their program for girls in grades 3-5. Over the course of the ten week program the girls learn about themselves, working as a team, and then working in their community, all while training for a 5K that they run at the end of their season.
  Girls on the Run has been in Central Louisiana since 2013.
• Beginning Experience: Grant money will be used to facilitate the grief resolution process for adults and children who have suffered a loss through death, divorce, or separation, enabling them to again love themselves, others, and God. Beginning Experience hosts retreats to help the grieving person by focusing on their experience and emerge from their darkness of grief into the light of a new beginning.