2012 Lend A Hand Grant Awards
This past year the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund announced that the Advisory Committee had awarded grants to eight, local, non-profit organizations, totaling $10,300. The grants were handed out at the ATC Community Fund’s second grant award reception in December 2012. The name of each organization and a brief description of how they will use the funds are listed below. Please visit their website to learn more about each organization…
Funds used to further geographical access to provide counseling services for families in Washington County by setting up satellite sites in Granville and Greenwich.
Founded in 1983, Adirondack Samaritan Counseling Center’s mission is to provide professional psychotherapy, counseling, and educational services to facilitate emotional and spiritual health for families and individuals of varied needs.
The Center currently has four community based satellites for serving the counseling needs of children and families who are unable to make, or afford, to travel to their main office in Hudson Falls. Funds received from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund will be used to further geographical access to provide counseling services for families in Washington County by setting up satellite sites in Granville and Greenwich. The funds granted will enable the center to maintain a Helping Hand Fund for fee assistance needed in these communities to offset some of the cost of counseling for those with no, or inadequate insurance to cover mental health counseling.
Funds used to allow the organization to continue to provide services and assistance in the immediate hours after loss.
After the Fire, Inc. is a nonprofit volunteer group founded in 1991 by ladies auxiliary members from Halfmoon and Clifton Park. They provide families in Saratoga County who have had fires with immediate emotional support, information and referrals to resources, personal hygiene products, clothing and a place to spend the night. They also help coordinate donations of household items and furniture. Their members respond to calls for help 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, 365 days a year. To-date they have responded to 330 fires and assisted 448 families.
The funds from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund will allow the organization to continue to provide services and assistance in the immediate hours after loss.
Funds used to expand Farm Photography for Kids program so it will reach more young people and teach the value of farm conservation.
Agricultural Stewardship Association was founded in 1990 by farmers and concerned citizens and has protected 14,165 acres on 92 properties across Washington and Rensselaer Counties. Their vision is a community with vibrant farms where people throughout the cities, towns and villages are connected in the working landscape and passionately support its conservation. The organization protects the community’s working landscape of farms and forests, connects people to the land, and promotes a vibrant future for agriculture in the region.
The organizations’ Farm Photography by Kids program was started in 2010. The program allowed children to get hands on lessons in photography from professional photographers and learn about agriculture and farm animals while doing so. The exhibit of their work is displayed at the Washington County Fair. With funding from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund, the Farm Photography for Kids program will be expanded so it may reach to more young people and teach the value of farm conservation.
ASPIRE
ASPIRE N.Y., Inc. will use the funds granted from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund for the purpose of renting minivans when they travel to their many activities. Recently they have visited the Great Escape Indoor Water Park in Queensbury, N.Y., Zero Gravity Laser Tag in Albany, N.Y. and The Museum of Natural History in New York City. Among their many other up-coming activities they will travel to the Herkimer Diamond Mine in Herkimer, N.Y. and Fort William Henry in Lake George.
The donation from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund will be used to provide social and recreational activities for children in DVRC’s emergency domestic violence shelter. When a child enters a shelter, he/she experiences an enormous disruption in day-to-day activities. Individualized attention allows the child to feel valued and provides an opportunity to discuss any feelings of anger, confusion, helplessness or loss that the crisis has elicited. The youth advocate provides a safe outlet to express feelings, thus helping the child to function more effectively in the home, at school, and to better adapt to the changes in the family.
DVRC provides gift certificates so moms can take their children out for a shared activity. Sometimes just going out for ice cream or bowling creates shared moments of laughter and joy that can bring the family
back to the bonds they share and ease their current struggles.
This summer program provides free lunch to underprivileged children in the Ballston Spa area. These children are provided lunch from the school district during the school year but might otherwise go hungry during the summer months.
The funds that were awarded from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund will help to expand the lunch program to five days a week, and to increase the number of distribution sites from one to three. Last year they served fifty-five children and their hope is to dramatically increase that number.
The Chapman Historical Museum is in the process of retooling the programs it offers area educators. The museum’s goal is to see greater use of local resources in the classroom. To accomplish this museum will hold teacher training workshops on "place-based education" for 4th and 8th grade teachers. The museum also will pilot new place-based educational outreach programs in area schools in spring 2012.
Grant funding from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund will be used to underwrite the costs of the training workshops and to waive or discount program fees for participating schools where budget cuts preclude payment for services.
The Friends of the Ulysses S. Grant Cottage will use the funds provided by the Adirondack Trust Community Fund to produce an audio walking tour of the grounds through the Guide By Cell program. With limited staff and volunteers providing tours, visitors to the Grant Cottage often face a wait. Without much for alternative exhibits to pass the time, a self-guided tour has been needed to provide visitors with a more fulfilling experience. Also, visiting youth and teens may become more engaged with the opportunity to involve technology in the learning process.
The Guide by Cell Tour for Grant Cottage has been pieced together with the generous help of the Friends tour guides, board of trustees, and membership. Several stations have been designated for users to call in to a specified number and hear narratives, facts, stories, and impersonations of figures relevant to the story of the Cottage. Members from the community and of organizations affiliated with the Friends will be sought out to record the audio that will enhance the information visitors receive from the introduction at the Visitors Center and the traditional tour of the interior of the Cottage. The funds provided by the Community Fund will cover the training for implementation, the monthly fees for hosting and technology during the Cottage’s open season, and the supplemental printed brochure.
The funding support Peaceful Acres Horses received from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund helped to fund a program that was offered to Parsons Child and Family Center. The youth served were all receiving therapeutic services from Parsons. The agency, that serves youth and families from around NY State, was able to refer the youth into our Equine Guided Experiential Learning Program through fiscal support The Community Fund provided. Six youth were served, as well as six rescued horses, and one Off Track Thoroughbred.
The support from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund helped children and the horses that would not have received these services.
Funds used to continue the operation of the mobile food pantry program in Saratoga County.
The Regional Food Bank is using the funds it was awarded by the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund to distribute large quantities of nutritious food to people in need in Saratoga County through its Mobile Pantry program. Every month, the Food Bank is bringing a truckload of approximately 25,000 pounds of fresh produce, dairy products, juice, and other foods to a host agency for distribution to low-income individuals throughout the county. This product is a supplement to the food they purchase or receive from other sources. It enables them to eat more nutritiously, and in many cases prevents them from falling into emergency food situations. The program has been a tremendous success and is sincerely appreciated by the host agency and the people it serves.
Saratoga Film Forum
Funds used to sponsor the series titled “In the Public Interest” to show films then have a moderated discussion after the film.
Saratoga Film Forum was founded in 1993 and shows high quality, hard to find, movies in a range of genres three days per week, eleven months a year. With the funds from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund, the Forum will host a program, In the Public Interest! movie night, coupling “hot topic” films with after movie moderated discussions. Movies in this series would explore subjects of civic interest, like health-care, public education national security or veterans’ rights.
The generous contribution received by the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund will go towards the restoration of the Spirit of Life & Spencer Trask Memorial located in Congress Park, Saratoga Springs, NY. The Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation, in partnership with the City of Saratoga Springs, is undertaking a multi-phased, four year $250,000 restoration of this significant local and national landmark. The Spencer Trask Memorial was commissioned by Katrina Trask to honor her late husband Spencer Trask and his efforts to protect and preserve Saratoga’s natural springs. The Memorial was completed through the collaboration of sculptor Daniel Chester French and architect Henry Bacon, who also designed and executed the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. French created the bronze sculpture, Spirit of Life, while Bacon designed the architectural and landscaped surrounds. The Memorial was completed in 1915, the same year the City of Saratoga Springs was incorporated. This restoration effort includes the bronze Spirit of Life sculpture, the masonry elements, and surrounding landscape.
Funds used to purchase special graphing calculators that will be used by student’s in the program for their math classes and SAT preparation.
The Adirondack Trust Community Fund has generously assisted the Saratoga Sponsor-A-Scholar program this year, donating funds to purchase specialized graphing calculators. These calculators are used for tenth grade Geometry class, the 11thgarde Trigonometry class and SATs. The students now have the tools to enable them to succeed.
SSAS selects 10 sophomores from the Saratoga Springs City School District each year and provides them with mentors, academic tutoring and help with college preparation during their last 3 years of high school and yearly cash stipends while in college. Each scholar must be eligible for federal assistance through the free school lunch program, have a 75 or better average, good citizenship characteristics and be selected by the school system on the basis of their potential to benefit from the SSAS curriculum.
These selected students now experience the challenging mathematics course as well as science and chemistry studies that come with the high school years… Then of course preparation for college entrance exams, (SAT, ACT, etc…). These programs and studies often require graphing calculators, which are very expensive.
From Left: Saratoga Sponsor-A-Scholar sophomores Carlie Barella and Dwanje Thornton doing math homework at the weekly SSAS Homework/Tutoring session.
Funds used to offset difference between a private pay individual bed stay at $10.00 per night versus the actual cost to the shelter at $78.00 per night.
Shelters of Saratoga’s mission since its founding in 1991 is to provide shelter, advocacy, and referral services to the homeless and those at risk of being homeless. Shelters of Saratoga currently operate an 18 bed emergency shelter facility to house homeless men and women. In 2011, the shelter served over 250 unduplicated individuals who would otherwise have no place to stay for the night. As the need has continued to rise, the organization is working on adding an additional 13 beds in an adjacent facility beginning in 2012.
The grant received from the Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund will be used to offset the difference between a private pay individual bed stay at $10.00 per night versus the actual cost to the shelter at $78.00 per night. In total, the grant will cover the cost of twenty nine bed nights. The shelter also assists their guests with finding stable employment and housing which, in turn, moves them out of the shelter and towards self-sufficiency.
Funds used to support the Youth Program that provides a safe haven for children to come to after school while participating in educational and social activities.
The Salvation Army’s Youth Program helps to get kids off the street and into a structured, educational program. This program assists these kids with their homework, computer lab, character building programs, music instruction, games, and provides a nutritional snack to them daily. The program averages between 20-25 children from Saratoga County every day.