School children, local nonprofits, low-income on help list for fundraising efforts

PETERSBURG – Five nonprofits are in the midst of a special projects fundraising effort, fueled by extra incentives from 2020 A Community Thrives program, a $2.3 million nationwide initiative of The Gannett Foundation. 

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Fourteen-year-old Madison Johnson providing a Double Dutch demonstration at Donamatrix Day which was held at Petersburg High School on April 6. JumpStarz who offers classes at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Petersburg on Thursday evenings were excited about participating in the hometown fitness festival hosted by celebrity fitness trainer Don “Donamatrix” Brooks. [Kristi K. Higgins/progress-index.com]

The program is sponsored by USA TODAY Network’s parent company, Gannett Inc. Gannett also owns the Progress-Index. 

These nonprofits are looking for minimums from $3,000 to $6,000 for their special projects, with an added goal of moving to the next level of larger Gannett grants, ranging from $25,000 to $100,000.  

The local nonprofits are Communities in Schools of Petersburg, Petersburg Library Foundation Inc., Petersburg Preservation Task Force, Pretty Purposed and Serenity. 

Their projects range from the expanding the reach of their health initiatives, to purchasing space so that school age girls have a space for after school programming. 

Serenity 

Serenity is a local group that has services like counseling, peer support sessions and rehousing for clients with HIV and AIDS, as well as education about the spread of those diseases. Serenity says that 30% of its clients contracted HIV/AIDS when they were between the ages of 14 and 19 years old and that over 850 people are in the Crater Region live with those diseases. 

“The people we work with are low-income, under employed, some of them are homeless. Just to have to get medical care they really need to optimize them, understand their health condition, how to ask the doctor for more information and then process that information,” said Charlotte Zimmerman of Serenity. 

A bulk of Serenity’s work is also in providing housing for clients who are homeless, as well as food and clothing. But one area where they could use more funding is in health outreach. Executive Director Rosa Johnson-Tuma explained the situation of a client who had recently passed away after two years in their care. They were able to clothe him, feed him, find him a job and overall stabilize his life.  

“But one piece that he did not do, he did not go to the doctor to see where he was,” Johnson Tuma said. “When people are faced with all these challenges, they deal with the first thing first – which may be eating, which may be clothing, which may be taking care of their children – but the health piece is not that critical unless they are in a medical crisis.” 

Serenity is hoping that funds from A Community Thrives will help them add to outreach, bringing health monitoring directly to their clients. 

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Pretty Purposed 

Pretty Purposed formed in 2016 with the goal of mentoring girls aged nine to 14 with activities focused in physical, social, and emotional development. It served 64 girls this past year and is hoping to expand to 100 this year, despite the challenges of COVID-19. 

Many of their after-school programs, weekend trips and community service activities are aimed at helping improve self-esteem, establish healthy relationships, create positive hobbies and fitness habits help with professional development like mock interviews and STEAM lessons. 

President and Founder Bianca Myrick is an educator with Chesterfield County Schools, with a passion for working with youth.  

“I started the group because I realized that girls really needed a safe space to develop those social emotional skills,” Myrick said. “We do all of our activities through a culturally informed lens, and a trauma informed care model, and we use social emotional learning strategies.” 

Pretty Purposed currently operates out of donated spaces. Increased funds through A Community Thrives would help the nonprofit find a permanent location and increase programing.

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Communities in Schools in Petersburg 

Run by Wanda Stewart, CIS provides extra supports for children in each of Petersburg’s schools. CIS puts one site coordinator in each of the City’s schools who monitors students for and dips in their grades or attendance. The group sets up students with tutors. If a student shows issues coming to school, site coordinators visit their homes to see if there what barriers the family faces in getting children to school. 

“We also work with them with their behavior,” Stewart said. “Behavior modifications, we have a program called express yourself which helps a student express why they are behaving the way they are and gives them strategies to move through in a competent manner.” 

Not that COVID-19 has hit and Petersburg Schools are closed, the group is helping out a lot more at home. 

“We are working specially to make sure that our parents, our students are covered with basic needs,” Stewart said. “Many of them have lost their jobs or are underemployed so we help with basic needs, some of which are basic hygiene products, clothing, shopping or rental assistance. And those are just the things needed for the day-to-day, because those are stressors that our students have.” 

CIS’ tier one services are intended to cover all students in the school system. It’s tier 2 services, which involve more one-on-one contact helps more than 258 students. 

Stewart says that A Community Thrives funding would be helpful for COVID-related programming, like keeping in touch over virtual interviews, and day-to-day necessities, like gas cards for Juniors and Seniors who are now helping with their household incomes. 

“They fight day to day, so if they’re in day to day survival there are so many things needed to help. And sometimes that programming may have a cost with it,” Stewart said. 

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Petersburg Preservation Task Force 

The PPTF is the primary organization that manages and presents Petersburg’s rich and unique cultural history. Run by a group of residents, the PPTF stepped in to run the city’s three museums – the Exchange Building, Centre Hill Mansion and Blandford Church – when Petersburg announced financial difficulties in 2016.  

Along with operating those museums, the PPTF also offers a variety of programs like the Mercy Street  and walking tours around the city.  

COVID-19 forced the museums to close for several months. They are now reopened at limited capacity per social distancing guidelines.  

The PPTF says on its website that it has identified numerous opportunities for telling a more complete story of Petersburg’s history and establish a long-lasting tourism industry in the area.  

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Petersburg Library Foundation 

The public library system in Petersburg is a community pillar. It provides regular weekly programming for kids, adults, and the elderly in Petersburg. Programming has covered numerous topics like healthy eating, film screening and discussion, Science, Technoloy, Engineering, Arts, and Math for kids and Soul music performances, all in addition to its books, computers and access to the internet. 

The library has been operating on limited services via drive-thru since Sept. 8 and was completely closed for several months after the start of COVID-19. 

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The Gannett Foundation is also offering dozens more regional grants will also be distributed for general operating support, starting at $2,500. These grants are chosen by local leaders across Gannett’s nationwide USA TODAY Network of newsrooms.

Last year, more than $4.5 million was distributed to nonprofits as a result of the program. Applicants raised more than $2.5 million through their own fundraising efforts and The Gannett Foundation gave out another $2 million in grants.

Grants this year will be awarded based on the proposed projects’ viability, sustainability, community need and service to historically disadvantaged groups.

To donate to any of the Petersburg projects, go to the nonprofits’ link.

You can reach Sean Jones at [email protected] Follow him at @SeanJones_PI. Follow The Progress-Index on Twitter at @ProgressIndex.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: School children, local nonprofits, low-income on help list for fundraising efforts