The Resident Advancement Committee of the Saint Luke’s Foundation’s Awards $54,000 in November Meeting
Cleveland, OH – November 26, 2024 – The Resident Advancement Committee of the Saint Luke’s Foundation has approved grants totaling $54,000 for nine small organizations during its October Resident Advancement Committee meeting. These investments advance the Foundation’s mission to achieve health equity by addressing social determinants of health, including:
- Educational attainment
- Financial stability
- Healthy eating and active living
- Safe and affordable housing
- Social connections
- Strengthening neighborhoods surrounding the former Saint Luke’s Hospital
“We are immensely proud of the ten dedicated residents on the Resident Advancement Committee, whose leadership has facilitated $54,000 in grants to empower a diverse array of community-driven initiatives,” said Indigo Bishop, Program Officer at the Saint Luke’s Foundation. “From equipping youth with lifesaving medical skills and advancing creative self-expression through writing and the arts, to fostering health, sustainability, and youth empowerment, these projects showcase the dedication and ingenuity of small organizations committed to strengthening the health and vitality of our neighborhoods.”
Here is a summary of this quarter’s Resident Advancement Committee awardees, the grant amounts awarded, and descriptions of how the grants will be used:
- Cultivating Excellence and Inspiring Future Leaders, Future Leaders Academy (Aaliyah Fields) was awarded a grant to host monthly workshops teaching youth how to respond to medical emergencies beyond CPR. Guided by health professionals they will practice how to identify if someone is having a heart attack, stroke, seizure, asthma attack or other acute condition, and what to do in that circumstance.
- CJ’s Famous Angus Boxed Lunches for Rice Branch Resource Fairs, Sponsored by Neighborhood Connections (Julian Khan) will provide free, healthy, and locally sourced boxed lunches at a series of monthly resource fairs hosted at the Rice Branch Library this winter. These resource fairs will connect Buckeye and Woodland Hills neighborhood residents with services related to health, employment, housing, and education.
- Focus: Universal Language of Chess, Sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity (Jason Floyd) will be providing youth in this area opportunities for growth through the game of chess, equipping the next generation with the tools and confidence to succeed both academically and personally.
- How to Be a Sustainable Keeper, A Hood Honey Project Sponsored by the Prolific Achievers Academy (Trey Williams) will engage 6 youth groups within St Lukes Footprint in 2025 in 2-hour apiary tour with Hood Honey at the LOOFA campus/Hood Honey farm in Mount Pleasant where they will learn about bees and the important role, they play in our food system and in our lives.
- 7th Annual Great Lakes African American Writers Conference, Little Lumpy’s Center (Dr. Leah Lewis) On Saturday, October 5, the 7th Annual (2024) Great Lakes African American Writers Conference (GLAAWC pronounced “glossy”) concluded Cleveland Book Week, anchored by the Cleveland Foundation’s esteemed Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Then, GLAAWC 2024 kicked off by Inkubator, led by Literary Cleveland with Keynote Speaker, Kimberla Lawson Roby.
- Giving Hope to Youth through Arts, Tarajia Resilience (Recellanese Williams) will fund a summer camp exposing youth to various forms of art including cooking, drawing, playwriting, gardening, and drama. At the end of the program, they will host a community performance featuring an art show and dinner, celebrating the creativity of the participants.
- The Impact of Art (Beyond Murals), Sponsored by the Assembly for the Arts (Veronica Thornton) funds for focus groups discussing why culturally appropriate dedicated spaces for arts and culture are needed to improve communities’ health conditions. The funds will be used to provide materials needed to perform focus groups, food and stipends for participants and pay for video documentation of the events.
- The Most Promising, Balance Point Studios (Ali Black) is a creative writing program for students designed to cultivate confidence, unlock, creative self-expression, and increase literacy skills. Students will explore different approaches to writing poetry and creative nonfiction, read and study work by selecting award-winning authors, learn about the publishing industry, and engage with current events and social issues by way of creative writing. The program will culminate with a final reading of student works. Funds would cover administrative/artist fees, program supplies, incentives, food and drinks.
- Touch of Rain Medical Mani/Pedis, Sponsored by Future Leaders Academy (Rain Burnside) funds to provide free medical pedicures to neighbors of the Saint Luke’s footprint with chronic health conditions impairing their mobility.
This month’s grants exemplify the Resident Advancement Committee’s commitment to fostering positive change and improving community health and well-being.
About the Resident Advancement Committee
The Resident Advancement Committee (RAC) is Saint Luke’s grantmaking body of ten community members who oversee the Foundation’s community discretionary budget. Through the RAC, residents of the Saint Luke’s footprint review the Foundation’s Community Grant applications and award up to $140,000 annually for initiatives that zero in on the social, economic, and environmental factors which shape health in their own neighborhoods. The Saint Luke’s Foundation is dedicated to achieving health equity by addressing social determinants of health for people in neighborhoods surrounding Saint Luke’s and throughout Cuyahoga County. For more information on the work of Saint Luke’s Foundation, please visit saintlukesfoundation.org
About Saint Luke’s Foundation:
The Saint Luke’s Foundation is dedicated to achieving health equity by addressing social determinants of health for people in neighborhoods surrounding Saint Luke’s and throughout Cuyahoga County. Saint Luke’s is committed to demonstrating grantmaking that is responsive to the community and believes that people thrive as a result of living free of racism and poverty and experiencing equitable economic opportunities and conditions that enable them to lead healthier lives. Since it was established with the charitable assets of the Saint Luke’s Medical Center in 1997, the Foundation has awarded over $170 million in grants. For more information on the work of Saint Luke’s Foundation, please visit saintlukesfoundation.org
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Media Contact:
Devonta Dickey
Communications and Marketing Officer
Saint Luke’s Foundation
216.431.8010
ddickey@stlukesfdn.org