SEATTLE — KING 5 and the TEGNA Foundation, the charitable foundation sponsored by TEGNA Inc. (NYSE: TGNA), have awarded 16 area nonprofit organizations community grants totaling $85,000.
Community grants in Western Washington are aimed at alleviating community concerns such as homelessness, food insecurity and anti-racism and social justice initiatives.
“Helping and serving our community is the most important thing we can do each and every day.” Christy Moreno, president and general manager of KING 5 said. “We are thrilled to be able to support local organizations doing great work and look forward to furthering our relationships with these groups by telling their stories and raising awareness to issues affecting the Northwest.”
The grant recipients include:
- ArtsFund: The grant helps support Washington’s arts organizations through grants, research, advocacy, leadership development, and capacity building by providing nearly $2.3 million in grants to more than 65 arts and cultural organizations through our annual keystone allocations program, which recently grew to support 10% more groups led by or serving BIPOC, LBGTQ+, or people with disabilities.
- Assistance League of Seattle: The grant will support ‘Operation School Bell’, a program providing gift cards to low-income students in grades K-8 in Seattle Public Schools to purchase new school clothes and coats. Students are eligible for Operation School Bell if they qualify for free/reduced lunch, live in homeless shelters or transitional housing, or are identified by Seattle Public Schools as a student who could benefit by participating in this program.
- Birthday Dreams: The grant helps support more than 80 shelters in Pierce, Snohomish, and King Counties to provide personalized birthday parties to homeless children aged 1-18 regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual identity. Our only goal is to remind these children that they are loved and important to the world around them.
- Blackpast.org: The grant supports an award-winning online resource detailing African American and global African history and perspective. With more than 8200 pages, Blackpast.org provides enriching, fascinating information and programming on Black history for the public.
- FareStart: The grant supports FareStart’s Hunger Relief and Food Security Program which now provides roughly 1.5 million meals to the community annually, including prepared meals for community partners, fresh produce and other goods offered through a mobile-based community market and additional food shared with other organizations feeding people.
- Holocaust Center for Humanity: Through education, events, field trips, museum visits, and community programs, the Holocaust Center for Humanity remains dedicated to its responsibility to fight hate by educating students, teachers, and the public about the dangers of intolerance and the difference each one of us can make.
- Juma Ventures Seattle: The grant supports ‘YouthConnect’, a program combining employment and job training at Seattle social enterprises with a complimentary suite of services focused on helping low-income youth earn a paycheck, learn job skills and connect to a living wage career.
- Kids Co: The grant helps provide and advocate for affordable quality childcare that enriches and nurtures all children, supporting their success in school and in life. High-quality programming keeps kids engaged, reinforces and expands on concepts learned in the classroom, provides physical activity, and supports social and emotion learning (SEL).
- Multi Service Center: The grant supports MSC’s Food Bank, which has been in continuous operation for nearly 50 years, serving approximately 4400 households annually. MSC Food Bank clients are primarily low-income residents of Federal Way, who depend on MSC’s distribution of food to supplement their nutritional needs.
- Pierce County AIDS Foundation: Through education and service, the grant helps prevent HIV acquisition, assists persons impacted by HIV and associated illnesses, and combats HIV-related stigma and discrimination.
- Rainier Valley Food Bank: The grant supports Seattle’s busiest food bank, serving an estimated 25 percent of all individuals seeking food assistance in the city, providing nourishing healthy foods through four avenues, using various formats to maximize the number of people we serve, and offering our Community Connector program to deliver wrap-around support for our clients.
- Refugee Women’s Alliance: The grant helps provide wrap-around social services for every member of the family. These services, delivered in over 50 languages and dialects, are designed to make a long-lasting impact in our clients’ lives and help them thrive in the Puget Sound community.
- Solid Ground: The grant works to end poverty and undo racism and other oppressions that are root causes of poverty. Each year, over 67,000 people participate in Solid Ground programs and services throughout Seattle, King County, and Washington state, helping people living on low incomes get stable housing, healthy food, transportation, public benefits, and other resources so they can meet their basic needs, build skills, and thrive.
- Sound Salmon Solutions: The grant supports salmon recovery through state-of-the-art habitat restoration, interactive education for children and adults, and hands-on land stewardship. We connect people with the watersheds of the Stillaguamish, Snohomish, Skykomish and Snoqualmie Rivers and South Whidbey Island.
- Step By Step Family Support Center: The grant supports work with vulnerable pregnant women to help them have a healthy pregnancy, a healthy baby, and a healthy future, serving approximately 1,200 women each year throughout Pierce, King, and Snohomish counties.
- Taaleem Community Center: The grant supports work motivating our youth of color, while helping them achieve their goals. Programs serve the community by providing support through mentorship, tutoring and skill set activities such as coding & college planning for youth.
“We are proud to support KING 5 as they address critical community needs in the Pacific Northwest,” Dave Lougee, president and CEO of TEGNA said. “Our stations are committed to investing in local nonprofit organizations through grant funding and also by bringing awareness to critical local needs.”
The TEGNA Foundation Community Grants program addresses the diverse local community needs in communities served by TEGNA. Most grants awarded fall into one of the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goal Categories: Good Health and Well-Being, Quality Education, and Zero Hunger. Other goals supported include Anti-Racism Initiatives, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Reduced Inequality, No Poverty, Life Below Water and Life on Land.
Community grants are vetted by a committee of employees at each station, including the station general manager, and approved by the TEGNA Foundation Board of Directors. Stations also amplify the impact of the TEGNA Foundation’s charitable contributions through reporting and employee volunteerism.
For information or to apply for a TEGNA Foundation Community Grant, click here.
