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Rebecca Salner, Media Relations Officer
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SILICON VALLEY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION AWARDS GRANTS FOR PROGRAMS IN SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, DALY CITY AND PACIFICA

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Silicon Valley Community Foundation today announced that it has awarded grants to four San Mateo County-based programs that support youth, economic security and land preservation.

The grants, each of which was at least $75,000, were part of $1.8 million awarded since January to more than 60 organizations serving San Mateo County.

The Youth Leadership Institute’s North County Prevention Programs received a two-year community endowment grant totaling $100,000 to continue its work and strengthen training so that young people can begin to award grants of their own for youth-led projects in their communities.

Working with Asian American Recovery Services, the Institute helps youth-led action teams target alcohol, tobacco, drug and violence problems and create long-term change. The teams have included Partnership for a Safe and Healthy Pacifica, a task force of students, parents, public officials, business people in Pacifica working to reduce youth alcohol abuse, and the Stay Safe Youth Coalition, a group of students representing high schools in Daly City’s Jefferson Union High School District that participate in Project Stay Safe. Project Stay Safe provides after-school programming.

Earlier this year, the community foundation awarded a $50,000 grant to The Learning Wheels Literacy Van, a 9-year-old program that provides early literacy development services to low-income pre-school children and their families in North San Mateo County.

The van, a 23-foot preschool on wheels, stops at low-income family child care homes and day care centers, homeless shelters and health care centers. It offers bilingual, free story reading, library services, free bilingual books and community resource information.

The other June grants in San Mateo County were:

• $100,000 to help the Peninsula Open Space Trust acquire and protect Mindego Hill, a 1,047-acre parcel of land on the western portion of Skyline Ridge. The bulk of that money came from the John and Mary Perkins fund, which was designated as a bequest for land conservation.
• $75,000 to help 30 underserved public high school students in southern San Mateo County participate in a college preparatory program at the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University.
• $75,000 to Springboard Forward of Belmont to support its Workplace Services program, which helps lower-wage workers in key industries identify career talents and get on a track for success. Rather than seek out workers in individual communities, Springboard Forward’s program focuses on the workplace itself.

“We’re committed to meeting community needs and tackling the challenges we face in communities throughout San Mateo County and across our region,” said Emmett D. Carson, Ph.D., CEO and president of the community foundation. “These grants will help excellent organizations continue that work.”

Since its launch in January 2007 through the landmark merger of Community Foundation of Silicon Valley and Peninsula Community Foundation, the new community foundation continued to follow the endowment grant guidelines of its parent foundations while conducting a Community Input Project to help inform a new grantmaking structure. As of June 30, the community foundation had awarded $11.5 million through endowment grants to nonprofit organizations in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The last grantmaking deadline using prior guidelines was Feb. 15, and the few final grants from that round will be awarded this summer. New endowment grant guidelines will be announced this fall.

Donors give to the endowment fund in order to support a permanent, charitable resource for the region’s changing needs. In addition to endowment grants, the community foundation partners with more than 1,500 fund advisors with donor advised funds. Payouts from these funds include grants to local, national or international nonprofits. A variety of assets, including cash, stock and real estate, may be used to open or add to a donor advised fund.