“The Foundation is also pleased to be making its first grants directly from its new Smart & Caring Community Fund.”

Kingston, Ontario (May 26, 2016)

On May 26 the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area  granted $176,525 to local charities for 28 innovative projects that will enhance the quality of life in our community.  Grants were awarded in several fields of interest, including over $67,000 to projects that support work in the field of Children’s Mental Health, an area in which there has been growing recognition of a gap in available services.

The largest grant of $29,198 was awarded to Pathways for Children and Youth for their project “Community Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy – Safe Talk”.  “Research tells us that 1 in 4 children and youth are currently struggling with a mental health problem” says Pathways executive director Nicki Collins. “Some of these children and youth have serious and even life-threatening issues, like suicidal thoughts.  This Community Foundation grant will allow a group of agencies across Kingston to reach out to all the adults who work with children and youth in recreation, in schools and in clubs.  We want to teach the adults who work with youth what to do when a suicidal youth asks them for help” says Collins about the impact of the grant.

The Foundation is also pleased to be making its first grants directly from its new Smart & Caring Community Fund.  This new fund was established last year to enable the Foundation to respond to priority community needs as they may shift over time. Tina Bailey, the Foundation’s Executive Director, said  “we are pleased that the efforts of our late friend Geoff Sandiford and many other board members, donors and volunteers have come to fruition and we are able to fund projects in Food Security, Getting Started and Community Engagement, our current priority areas”.

The Foundation thanks its generous donors and the hard-working volunteers on the grants review committee for making this all possible.

Arts & Culture

Kingston Symphony Association, Share the Music: $4,000
Funded through the Mrs. Rupert Davies Fund, the Ruth and Stu Barton Community Fund and the Ontario Endowment for Children and Youth in Recreation Fund. Share the Music provides children, who otherwise could not afford it, the opportunity to attend a Kingston Symphony Family Concert. Together with their families, the children will participate in a live performance, discover the instruments that make up an orchestra, and interact with professional musicians. By providing complimentary tickets to these families, we are able to reach and engage a large cross-section of youth in our community who normally would not be able to participate.

Kingston Artist’s Association (operated as Modern Fuel Artist Run Centre), Arts & Autonomy: $2,502
Funded through the Edward Ratcliffe Fund. In Modern Fuel’s Arts & Autonomy Speaker Series, artists will discuss the self-representation of precarious and marginalized communities, while considering the role of art in engaging with social justice issues.  Local and visiting artists, activists and scholars will address sovereignty, austerity and precarious labour, focusing on the intersections between these cultural and social forces.  Cultural production in turn emerges as a component of self-representation and self-organization, with the politics of art production itself considered.

Children’s Mental Health

Pathways for Children and Youth, Project Community Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy – Safetalk: $29,198
Funded through the Sunnyside Children’s Fund. We are a collaborative of youth serving agencies working together to realize our goal: That everyone who works alongside or supports youth – wherever they live, learn, work, or play – will be equipped to help youth who may feel suicidal. Using the evidence-based programs “ASSiST”, and “Safetalk”, we intend to create a web of support for youth who may be at risk, as part of our caring, responsive community.

Kingston Community Health Centres, The Chill Zone: $9,500
Funded through the Sunnyside Children’s Fund. The Chill Zone Youth Space is an integrated youth-led project that provides a range of services for youth 14-19 years of age. Activities are organized and run by three youth engagement workers as well as health education sessions held by our staff and staff from partner organizations.

Queen’s Community Music (QCM), Sistema Kingston Teaching Program (year 2: 2016-17): $10,000
Funded through the Sunnyside Children’s Fund. Sistema Kingston is an intensive after-school music program that focuses on positive social change through the pursuit of musical excellence. Through free, group-centered music instruction, SK will emphasize teamwork, and personal persistence, and foster creativity and personal responsibility in all of its activities. Using the Venezuelan El Sistema as its model, SK aspires to bring social change to inspire children to reach their full potential as individuals, musicians, and citizens.

Skeleton Park Arts, Musicalize Your Mental Health: $5,277
Funded through the Sunnyside Children’s Fund. Musicalize Your Mental Health uses music as a metaphor for mental health. This helps make mental health education more accessible, proactive, and fosters a deeper understanding. At-risk youth build skills in music, collaboration, proactive mental health strategies, and song-writing. This fun, collaborative group increases their skill set and empowers at-risk youth to face life’s challenges.

YMCA of Kingston, Child and Youth Mental Health Training Program: $1,866
Funded through the Sunnyside Children’s Fund. The YMCA of Kingston’s Child and Youth Mental Health Training Program provides mental health training to our child care and camping staff to ensure adequate support for the children and youth attending our programs.  We know that when support is provided at an early age we can increase resiliency of our most vulnerable populations.  The training program will ensure that those in a position to first see signs of distress will have the tools to respond.

Kingston Community Health Centres, KCHC Youth Drop In Centre: $7,889
Funded through the Sunnyside Children’s Fund. The Youth Hub will be a positive, safe and supportive space where youth can access community supports and engage in meaningful conversations and activities with staff and each other.

The Joe Chithalen Memorial Musical Instrument Lending Library, Instruments for Sistema Kingston Year 2: $3,529
Funded through the Sunnyside Children’s Fund. Sistema Kingston (SK) is an intensive after-school music program that uses string instruments and embraces the five principles of the successful Venezuelan El Sistema model.  SK emphasizes inclusivity and teamwork, builds personal persistence, and fosters creativity and personal responsibility.  The  program is a strong three-way collaboration between Queen’s Community Music (instructors, curriculum), Limestone District School Board/First Ave School and Molly Brant School (space, students), and the Joe Chithalen Musical Instrument Lending Library (instruments).

Community Development

H’art Centre, Deaf Theatre Collective: $3,000
Funded through the Phil Quatrocchi Memorial Fund and the Community Fund. Since 2014, H’art has provided workshops and opportunities to encourage the development of a Deaf Theatre Collective. The success of those pilot initiatives created a working collective that now requires support to develop and write a script for a play that will capture the experience of a deaf family raising hearing children. Foundation funds will support a professional deaf actor/playwright and ASL translator who will engage the community and create the original work.

Food Policy Council for KFL&A, Food Matters: Connecting the Roots of the Food Security Movement in KFL&A: $565
Funded through the Smart & Caring Community Fund. The Food Policy Council for KFL&A will host an educational networking forum to enhance knowledge and engage community members about food security in the area. It will orient 70 people to four existing efforts and increase mobilization around local food security through: 1) an expert panel discussion; 2) Strategy sessions (skill-sharing and working group development); 3) showcasing local farmers, producers, social service agencies, and retailers.

Education & Literacy

Museum of Health Care, Traditional Indigenous Medicine of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe Education Program: $4,451
Funded through the Michelle Skolnik Smart & Caring Fund, Gordon F. Tompkins Funeral Home Children’s Fund and the Smart & Caring Community Fund. The hands-on, curriculum-linked education program Traditional Indigenous Medicine of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe aims to instill in participants recognition, knowledge and respect for local Indigenous medicine and culture. The program, held at the Museum of Health Care, explores holistic health, the Medicine Wheel, the four traditional medicines, and healing herbs from Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee perspectives in historic and contemporary society. The program also critically assesses the use of Indigenous imagery and ideology.

Kingston Literacy Skills, Let’s Read! Early Literacy Strategy, $1,952
Funded through the Getting Started Fund and the Smart & Caring Community Fund. Prevention of reading difficulty begins long before school entry. Let’s Read! Early Literacy Strategy supports children’s early language and literacy development in Kingston and area by providing early literacy information to parents, picture books to take home to encourage reading with children from birth and promote a love of reading, and key messages from health professionals about the importance of family reading.

Kingston Indigenous Language Nest, Reclaiming Our Stories to Build Our Community: $15,407
Funded through the Ruth and Stu Barton Community Fund, the Ronald and Mildred Grant Family Fund and the Community Fund. Reclaiming Our Stories to Build Community is an initiative by the Kingston Indigenous Language Nest to train volunteers to make digital stories, a knowledge that they will then pass on to others within the Indigenous community. These digital stories will encourage sharing Indigenous knowledge, languages, traditions, and cultural practices through a more modern method of story-telling: the digital world. These digital stories will be accessible 24/7 to those wishing to learn more.

Kingston Indigenous Language Nest, Our Stories, Our Language: $2,500
Funded through the William Cherry Fund and the Larry Gibson Community Fund. Dozens of print, audio and digital resources will support Indigenous language and cultural revitalization in Anishinaabe, Mohawk, Miq ma, Cree and Inuktituk languages. A new collection owned by the Kingston Indigenous Language Nest (KILN) will be housed at the Kingston Frontenac Public Library and available through library loans.

Health & Social Services

Kingston 4 Paws Service Dogs (K4PSD), K4Paws Expansion Program: $7,500
Funded through the Richard Moorehouse Fund, the Frank and Sarah Good Memorial Fund and the Ruth and Stu Barton Community Fund. K4PSD trains and places service dogs with local individuals living with a number of physical and mental challenges. The process takes almost 24 months with thousands of volunteer and trainer hours. Once placed, these dogs provide individuals with physical assistance, a sense of safety and independence. To quote a recent recipient, “My husband says he got back his wife, I say I got back my life.”

Kingston 4 Paws Service Dogs (K4PSD), K4PSD Program Training Manual and Online Testing Modules: $5,250
Funded through the Marion Meyer Opportunity Fund and the Community Fund. K4PSD will complete the K4PSD Service Dog Recipient Training Manual and the related Self-Test Modules. It is our objective to use these resources to assist in maintaining our expected waiting times for people in need of a service dog in our area to no more 24 months.

New Leaf Link (NeLL), Arts & the Self in Community, $8,620
Funded through the Helping Hands for Persons with Disabilities Fund. The New Leaf Link (NeLL) Arts program in rural Kingston has been underway since 2009. This project represents a creative collaboration amongst NeLL participants and 3 gifted Artists: Christine Harvey (Drama), Annie Milne (Puppets), and Gary Raspberry (Music). Performance in this integrative project extends NeLL’s community inclusion mandate: disabled participants forge new friendships, expand interests, and build community-engagement skills, while Open House events encourage broad public awareness of the abilities of vulnerable adults.

Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority, Building Local Food Capacity Through Cold Storage: $9,083
Funded through the Sandiford Family Fund, the Jim & Julie Parker Fund and the Smart & Caring Community Fund. What is better than fresh, local food?  We wish to improve an existing cold storage facility at the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority so that it can be available for local producers and charities to store their produce in the fall and winter, extending the fresh food season in Kingston.  It’s an economic and environmental benefit to the whole community.

Heritage Preservation

Kingston Historical Society, Kingston in 150 Pictures: $500
Funded through the Chown Fund. The Kingston Historical Society is sponsoring a book titled Kingston in 150 Pictures. It will celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday by showing 150 objects which have been part of Kingston’s history and which have made the city what it is. Each photographed object will have an explanation of why it is important to Kingston. Readers will be invited to contribute their own objects to enlarge the book for Kingston’s 350th birthday in 2023.

Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston, Community Heritage Connection: $2,350
Funded through the Douglas Branton Fell Memorial Fund. The Community Heritage Connection project offers students of all ages in the Kingston area the chance to connect with their local heritage through hands-on, meaningful, curriculum-based learning. Students will be able to interact with local history while using skills that are relevant to what they are learning in their classrooms. Each program is developed with specific curriculum in mind in order to provide teachers with effective and engaging material for their students.

Recreation

Boys and Girls Club of Kingston and Area, Girls Only Running Club: $5,000
Funded through the Bill and Gladys Kelly Community Fund and the Ontario Endowment for Children and Youth in Recreation Fund. The Boys and Girls Club of Kingston and Area leads the way in creating a community mentorship: Girls Only Running Club. This project will coach young girls between the ages of 9-12 about the importance of personal goals, physical fitness and mental wellness. The club will also embrace community by including a mentor program with local women.

Able Sail Kingston, Setting Sail on the Sonar: A New Direction: $13,000
Funded through the Helping Hands for Persons with Disabilities Fund, Larry Gibson Community Fund and Cecil and Evelyn Wharrie Fund. A gift from the late Ron Watts of a Sonar 22-ft sailboat has allowed Able Sail Kingston to expand substantially its capacity to serve persons with disabilities in Kingston. After receiving a grant from CFKA in 2014 to install adapted seats, we now have the potential to accommodate more sailors, and people with a range of disabilities, including blind sailors, frail seniors, and people who require a caregiver while they sail.

MusicMates, Music and Movement Summer Camp: $3,000
Funded through the Helping Hands for those with Disabilities Fund. MusicMates will offer an affordable summer program for teens and adults with special needs.  By providing support workers for our participants, caregivers will be relieved of a significant financial burden.  This will enable participants in each week of camp to enjoy a true camp experience while being supported by professional staff and a licenced personal support worker.

Youth

Four Directions Aboriginal Student Centre, Aboriginal Youth Summer Camp: $8,761
Funded through the Ontario Endowment for Children and Youth in Recreation Fund. The Four Directions Aboriginal Student Centre plans to provide a free summer camp in the North end of Kingston for Aboriginal Youth. The focus of this camp will be social and cultural development to promote life-skills in Aboriginal youth. This program is designed to enhance educational outcomes, improve peer-to-peer relationships, and improve physical and mental health through safe and fun activities.

Camp Outlook, Camp Outlook Leadership Trip: $5,705
Funded through the Cameron and Laurie Thompson Community Fund and Sunnyside Children’s Fund. Camp Outlook provides backcountry canoe trips at no cost to youth from the Kingston area. On a Camp Outlook Leadership Trip, youth are given a chance to build skills and experience the responsibilities of leadership in the wilderness.

PeaceQuest, Hands United for Peace: $1,917
Funded through the Ross and Susanne Kilpatrick Fund and Tragically Hip Community Fund. Hands United for Peace will engage school children in learning about peace-building through art, music, discussion and performance. Students will create a public art piece and develop an original soundscape which they will perform in two public concerts. Award-winning author/illustrator Wallace Edwards will showcase his new PeaceQuest book in ten schools, stimulating discussion about how children can be peacemakers. PeaceQuest will create a resource kit so teachers across Canada can replicate the project.