UBC Grant Program
2011 UBC Grants Awarded to Seven Organizations for Racial, Gender and Economic Justice Work
University Baptist Church is pleased to announce the recipients of our inaugural UBC Grants. These grants will be awarded annually to fulfill our mission for racial, gender and economic justice.
Our community was pleased by the overall quality of all of the applications we received, and we are proud to be able to award grants to the following:
Coalition for Refugees from Burma: This grant will further fund CRB's New Life Literacy program which provides pre-level Language 1 support for refugees newly arrived to the Seattle area. The program provides them educational structure and the basic skills needed to access already existing ESL programs.
SHARE (Seattle Housing and Resource Effort): SHARE is an organization that currently facilitates 15 indoor shelters, two tent cities hosted primarily by faith-based congregations, and other temporary housing facilities to over 500 people every night. They provide their participants with bus tickets, peer-based resource assistance, and other basic services. This organization works to meet basic needs.
Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness: This grant will provide further funding to support ITFH in their basic goals of "providing a vehicle for the religious community to exert moral leadership among the leaders in the public, business, nonprofit, and private sectors, and to exhort these leaders to form regional solutions that end homelessness and create affordable housing. This is primarily an advocacy and education organization that works to change and influence policies and legislation.
School Library in Tounkourouma Guinea, Africa: This grant will complete the physical construction of a library in this African village. The program will be completed by Peace Corp and local volunteers. The program is in no way funded by Peace Corp Volunteers.
A Voice for Unspoken Grief: This grant will provide families dealing with pregnancy loss (including miscarriage, still births, terminations, and infertility) spiritual counseling, coaching, resources and materials. There will also be a number of healing church services developed and offered to the families.
Thrift Store at UMC: The UMC thrift store provides showers, haircuts, nurse presence, information, bedding, clothes, referral services and lunches to currently homeless individuals. These individuals are referred by organizations and the primary sources of funding are donations from outside organizations.
Literacy Source: This program helps non-native English speaking students that are not US Citizens apply and study for their citizenship exam so they may live more securely in the country without worries of being deported or live in fear of being removed if they ask for assistance or help.
University Baptist Church works for peace, justice and reconciliation both locally and globally. We work within our congregation as well as the communities that surround us to bring about systemic change and meet basic human needs in the areas of gender, racial and economic justice. We do so by offering an annual grant opportunity in the range of $500-$5,000. The application process for 2011 is now closed. While these grants are considered for a year-by-year purpose, we will consider multi-year commitments in special circumstances.
