Partners in Philanthropy Partnering with you to love Kalamazoo
Spring 2021
You've already shown your love for this community by creating an Advised Fund at the Community Foundation. Through Partners in Philanthropy, we offer you an opportunity to demonstrate that love again by supporting one or more of the projects highlighted with a grant suggestion from the fund you established. The programs shared in this publication are among the recent funding requests we've received from local nonprofit organizations.
Helen L. Fox Gospel Music Center
Imagine a world without music! This is the reality for many talented youth living in under-resourced communities who have never touched, handled or played a musical instrument. The Helen L. Fox Gospel Music Center is committed to changing the inequity that exists within the urban and under-served communities where access to music education is another path to building life skills and overall success. Research has shown that playing an instrument can improve reading and comprehension skills, math skills, and language skills. Even within the public school system, the opportunities to learn a musical instrument are limited. This program creates access to music education in a world where budgets often fall short. Music education should be more than a luxury for those with means. The Helen L. Fox Gospel Music Center is named for Helen L. Fox, who was a Kalamazoo community icon that dedicated her life to community service and provided music education as part of that service, teaching piano lessons to students at a cost they could afford. Funding for the HLFGMC will allow student scholarships, additional instruments and expanded locations.
Photos courtesy of Helen L. Fox Gospel Music Center
To support this program, select Helen L. Fox Gospel Music Center on the grant suggestion form.
More Co-Investment Opportunities These co-investment opportunities highlight some recent funding requests from local nonprofit organizations. If you want to support one or more of these projects through the Advised Fund you established at the Community Foundation, please make a grant suggestion using Kalamazoo Connect — go to kalfound.org and click on the green Kalamazoo Connect link at the top of our website — or complete the grant suggestion form on page 4 and return it to KZCF by email, USPS or fax. You also may email members of our Donor Relations team, who are available to provide you with more information about these and other community needs. See page four for contact information.
African Community Kalamazoo
After living as a refugee in Malawi from 2000-2013, Joshua Kibezi Munonge resettled in the United States where he faced significant challenges because he could not speak English. When COVID 19 hit the refugee and immigrant community especially hard, African Community Kalamazoo organized to provide food to African families and expanded services to assist anyone in need of support during this crisis. To support this program, select African Community Kalamazoo on the grant suggestion form.
Kids Moving & Thriving
Every child deserves the opportunity to be as healthy as possible. Yet, not all kids have equitable access to healthy food and safe, affordable physical activity. That’s why Kids Moving & Thriving partners with families to develop healthy kids in mind, body and spirit by offering inclusive physical activity programming and connecting youth to mental and emotional health resources. To support this program, select Kids Moving & Thriving on the grant suggestion form.
The Black & Brown Therapy Collective
The Black and Brown Therapy Collective (BBTC) was created in response to Kalamazoo’s need for culturally competent mental health care services. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) are dealing with generations of racial trauma. The BBTC facilitates connections between BIPOC residents and BIPOC clinicians by initiating those connections, and covering the costs of therapy. Referring residents to clinicians who understand their identity locations, and covering the costs of therapy help BBTC eliminate two common barriers to entry: cultural mistrust, and financial access. Since January 2021, the BBTC network has grown to over 26 clinicians. Nearly 40 BIPOC community members have inquired about services, and 23 have begun their healing journeys. To support this program, select The Black & Brown Therapy Collective on the grant suggestion form.
Urban Folk Art Exploratory
The Urban Folk Art Exploratory was founded in 2005 by Remi Harrington with a mission to provide a voice to the Hip Hop Community to activate social change through the Arts. That mission has evolved from arts-based social justice education and programming through area nonprofits like Kalamazoo Communities in Schools, into full-on neighborhood-centered food industry ecosystem development, and various other aspects of public interest design led by the people. The goal is to re-engineer pathways to access by leveraging public and vacant spaces. Those sites have historically been viewed as blight and functionally obsolete, but they are valuable and can be remediated and reimagined into all types of cool things that the entire community can enjoy, in addition to creating work for people. Their vision of a viable and harmonious Hip Hop community is the verbal illustration of the story the Diaspora people of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Hip Hop has provided pathways for participation in the economy and the democracy as citizens in ways that Black people have historically been ousted from taking part in. When the work started in 2005, Harrington says this conversation felt radical. Sixteen years later, the same conversations are happening, but she has recognized shifts in the social, political and economic landscape.The hope is to create systems in the Black community that seamlessly transition from the conversation to activating values in the space of real estate development, historical arts preservation, instructional design, food systems design and workforce development. The Urban Folk Art Exploratory believes the people must create for themselves because, regardless of intention, systems will fail without solutions that are center community. To support this program, select The Urban Folk Art Exploratory on the grant suggestion form.
Photo courtesy of Urban Folk Art Exploratory
Partners in Philanthropy | Spring 2021
Grant Suggestion Form
To suggest a grant in support of one or more of the projects listed in this publication, please complete this form and return it to the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. You also may suggest grants online using Kalamazoo Connect at https://connect.kalfound.org or by emailing a member of our Donor Relations team I/We would like to recommend one or more grants from the fund named below in the amount(s) indicated. I/WE acknowledge that any grant suggestion made does not represent the payment of a personal pledge or other financial obligation, nor is any personal benefit from this charitable distribution expected
Name Fund Name Telephone
Signature
Date
Helen L. Fox Gospel Music Center
Contact: Bridget TuckerGonder, CEO Address: 1000 West Paterson Street Kalamazoo, MI 49007 Email: btgonder@hlfgmc.org
African Community Kalamazoo
Contact: Joshua Kibezi, Founder Address: 3616 East G Avenue Kalamazoo, MI 49004 Email: joshuakibezi@yahoo.com
Kids Moving & Thriving
Contact: Leslie McCullough, Executive Director Address: 120 Roberson Street Kalamazoo, MI 49007 Email: lcbrogdon@gmail.com
Black & Brown Therapy Collective
Contact: Kama Mitchell, CEO & Founder Rootead Enrichment Center Address: 505 East Kalamazoo Avenue Suite #3 Kalamazoo, MI 49007 Email: kama@rootead.org
Urban Folk Art Exploratory
Contact: Remi Harrington, Executive Director Address: 736 W. Jackson Street Kalamazoo, MI 49001 Email: info@exploreurbanfolkart.org
Our Donor Relations Team
Beth Gregory-Wallis | 269.585.7245 | bgregory-wallis@kalfound.org Cindy Trout | 269.585.7248 | ctrout@kalfound.org Joanna Donnelly Dales | 269.585.7260 | jdales@kalfound.org Julie Loncharte | 269.585.7270| jloncharte@kalfound.org Sharayl Moore | 269.585.7255 | smoore@kalfound.org
402 E. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49007-3888 | t 269.381.4416 | f 269.381.3146 | e info@kalfound.org