The Catholic Community Foundation is pleased to announce that our Spring Grant Cycle has now closed and grants have been awarded. Through the generous donations of our donors, we were able to fund 76 of the 85 programs that applied this year.
A total of $237,600 was granted, including a $25,000 matching grant from John M. Sobrato and a $5,000 matching grant from Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County. On behalf of the community that will be enriched by their philanthropy, we extend our sincere gratitude to those generous donors.
Many wonderful programs applied for funding this year. A few noteworthy grant recipients include the Amigos de Guadalupe at Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Deanery 6 Summer Literacy Program, and the Cristo Rey San Jose Jesuit High School student retreat program.
Amigos de Guadalupe is a complex social ministry organization focused on helping the disadvantaged and oppressed community members of the neighborhoods surrounding Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, located in East San Jose. Its immigration integration program assists local undocumented residents obtain their legal rights of citizenship or normalize their immigration status. The program recently partnered with Catholic Charities to train and educate its community volunteers to better assist those in need.
The Deanery 6 Summer Literacy Program is a multi parish collaborative that provides summer education courses in the subjects of reading, math, fitness and enrichment to students of five cooperating parishes. Thanks to the grants of the Catholic Community Foundation and the City of San Jose, the Summer Literacy Program was able to serve and meaningfully intervene in the lives of 375 youths last year, and hopes to extend its impact in 2015 with this new grant.
Cristo Rey is a Jesuit, Catholic high school that empowers students from underserved communities in East San Jose to be men and women for others by providing them with a college-preparatory curriculum and a paid job-share program. The high school student retreat program will offer students an opportunity to reflect on their personal experience through a Catholic, Jesuit lens, strengthening their faith bonds and enriching student growth and development.
All of our spring grants are funded by endowment funds managed by the Catholic Community Foundation, specifically Parish Outreach, Stewardship, Pastoral Ministry and the Apolonia Andre Fund for Liturgical Music, and by the generosity of our matching grant donors. The Foundation remains focused on establishing new endowed funds and developing those that already exist, through the philanthropy and compassion of our donors and in the values of our Catholic faith. As we continue to grow our fund base, we will increase our ability to financially support and strengthen the Catholic ministries of the Santa Clara Valley. Together, we will achieve great things!
To learn more about how you can assist the Foundation in building Forever Value for Catholic ministry, please visit us at www.cfoscc.org or contact us at (408)995-5219. We look forward to partnering with you!