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23 CBOs Funded With Lancaster Cares

We are proud to announce another $50,000 in investment to 23 local community benefit organizations to meet the unfolding COVID-19 crisis in Lancaster County. 

Thanks to your support of the Lancaster Cares Fund, the Lancaster County Community Foundation and the United Way of Lancaster PA are able to provide support to vital local programs meeting the need of your friends, neighbors, and family such as food pantries, outpatient services, tele-medicine, addiction counseling, outreach into the Plain Community, and more. 

These funds will be distributed based on the issue areas of Food Access, Housing, and Emerging Needs.

Meet the 23 organizations

We received a large amount of applications for funding, and while we weren’t able to fund all the ideas, we are proud to be able to make small grants to as many organizations as possible, seeding many new and creative ideas to address the needs of our community. 

Click below to view each organization’s proposed Lancaster Cares program and grant amount.

Food Access

Anchorage Breakfast: "Anchorage Breakfast to Go"

Grant amount: $1,500

Since the pandemic and the order for social distancing, instead of a seated indoor buffet breakfast, Anchorage Breakfast To Go guests have been provided with a healthy take-away breakfast including breakfast sandwiches or casserole, juice, cereal, milk, fruit, and snacks, packaged in an environmentally friendly manner to reduce waste. Meals are distributed by the executive director and a trained and paid staff member in the vestibule of First United Methodist Church, one guest at a time.

Boys & Girls Club of Lancaster: "Staying Connected"

Grant Amount: $4,500

We are distributing a hot food item (ex. hot dog, chicken sandwich) and snack bags (juice boxes, fresh fruit, cereal, granola bars) to children in Lancaster City and Columbia. These meals are available to all children and are being handed out each day to help families through this difficult time.

We would also like to retain a seasoned member of our team, Darryl Waters, to conduct family check-in calls to ensure our families are safe and have what they need to navigate the coming weeks.

CHI St. Joseph Children's Health: "Healthy Columbia Crisis Meals Initiative"

Grant Amount: $4,000

Necessary closures and limitations have been implemented to mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus, these measures serve the greater good but have brought hardships. The Healthy Columbia Meals initiative was launched on March 17th to provide freshly-prepared nutritious meals to residents of the 17512 ZIP Code experiencing food insecurity during the crisis. Our hope is to continue providing freshly prepared meals throughout this pandemic until restrictions are lifted and services restored.

Go Beyond LLC: "Community Food Pantry"

Grant amount: $1,000

Go Beyond is providing food, personal hygiene and household supplies for a Community Food Pantry to aid in relief from food insecurity during the current COVID-19 crisis, and afterward. The economic impact on families has caused fear, insecurity, demand for food, hygiene and household supplies. First week of food pantry began with 14 pallets of food, serving 75 families. An additional 75 families are scheduled to receive food on week 2. Current requests exceed 175 families and 800 people.

Grace Chapel Food Pantry

Grant amount: $1,000

We purchase food from Blessings of Hope with a donated box truck. We just pay gas. We also get food from our local Giant. We are boxing and bagging the food each Wednesday with volunteers – all wearing protective gear – and load it into vehicles that drive thru – keeping social distance over this time of the coronavirus. Also, we are available for emergency food distribution to the elderly and sick.

Hands Across the Street: "Feeding our Community Through the Pandemic"

Grant amount: $1,600

We are delivering lunches weekdays to families in Columbia and the surrounding areas as well as giving food boxes on Fridays. We are giving out about 500 lunches per day right now. We are also supplying food for 2 other sites in Landisville and East Petersburg 3 days per week equal to 450 lunches.
We have been deemed an emergency food site for children so we have started to get reimbursement for children but we will not for adults. We will now be adding breakfast due to schools closing.

Moravian Center of Lancaster: "Community Meal Distribution"

Grant amount: $1,500

Lancaster City has a wonderful network of churches/organizations that provide 3 meals a day to individuals experiencing homelessness and/or food insecurity. Due to the Covid crisis, some of those entities have needed to stop serving for the time being. We have the volunteers, space, and resources to stand in the gap for one of those places to provide brown bag ready to eat meals to anyone who comes to get one twice a week until the crisis ends.

Parish Resource Center: "Food Security and Workforce Opportunities through Collaboration"

Grant amount: $2,500

Requested funds will fill recent gaps formed in the Lancaster Community Meal Program and ensure community members continue to receive three free meals a day. PRC is collaborating with Commons Company (the B-Corp group behind Prince St. Café, Blue Line, Passenger Coffee), along with several of their suppliers, to rehire furloughed food industry workers to provide additional meals. The proposed project will prepare 400-500 nutritious Grab ‘n Go meals a week for anyone who needs food.

PRiMA Arts: "Feeding Local Theatre Artists"

Grant amount: $1,000

Prima is providing $100 grocery store gift cards to local out-of-work theatre artists (performers, designers, directors, musicians, administrators, arts bookkeepers, technicians) to feed themselves and their immediate family.

Spanish American Civic Association (SACA): "SACA Community Meals Program"

Grant Amount: $2,500

SACA will continue to provide a grab and go meals program to low income residents and senior citizens of southeast Lancaster. We are serving an average of 85 individuals per day. In addition, we provide delivered meals to 20 members of our senior center who are unable to travel to the Center to pick up the meals. The grab and go program replaced our current community feeding program which was discontinued due to the Center having to close because of the COVID emergency.

The Factory Ministries: "The Factory Market"

Grant amount: $2,500

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pequea Valley community has been faced with surge in food insecurity. In the past month, the number of individuals and families served has more than doubled and continues to grow weekly. The Factory Market is committed to ensuring that no family or individual goes hungry in our community. We aim to do this by securing enough food for those in need and increasing our capacity to serve.

Housing

Mighty Mehal Foundation: Help the Mighty Conquer Addiction

Grant amount: $2,000

Our foundation typically awards (1) $500 scholarship per month, but COVID-19 has brought us more applications than ever before! To keep up with the growing need of funding for recovery house residents who have lost their jobs as well as brand new residents who need to pay entry fees, we want to continue to provide funding to those who need a safe home environment that promotes recovery, one that will prevent relapse. Please help us to prevent homelessness and overdose in our recovery community.

REAL Life Community Services

Grant amount: $2,000

REAL Life Community Services provides social services to the community at the Declaration House, 240 Main Street, Suite B, Denver. Declaration House creates a new social services hub for the people of northern Lancaster County. This project will increase our benevolence fund to provide for Cocalico School District during this difficult time. The increased funds will enable our social worker to assist the community with food, rental, & utility assistance as well as other life-sustaining needs.

Emerging Needs

Attollo: "Attollo Scholar Safety Net Services"

Grant amount: $1,000

Attollo staff is managing concerns of the mental health of Scholars and the basic necessities of their families. Through weekly touchpoints our staff is learning of the financial ability to pay for food and internet to stay connected to their schoolwork. In addition to reporting needs to the school, often immediate action is needed. Attollo is providing these resources to enable our most vulnerable students to deal with this most difficult situation.

Clinic for Special Children: "Addressing the Plain Communities' FAQs Regarding COVID-19

Grant amount: $1,000

The CSC is a trusted source of health information among the Plain communities of Lancaster Co. Our clinicians have had many questions from our Plain patients regarding the transmission of COVID, including how they can protect themselves and their loved ones. The CSC proposes to address these questions in an open letter from our Medical Director.

Gaudenzia Vantage: "Residential and Outpatient Services"

Grant amount: $1,000

COVID-19 severely impacts our ability to save lives. Emergency supplies would help safeguard our women, children and staff in this crisis. Funds will resolve urgent needs at Vantage and Elsie Shenk Outpatient Center: gloves, masks, sanitizers, cleaning supplies, and thermometers are critical to maintaining the health of our patients and clinical staff who are doing valiant life-saving work. Supplies would enable our women and children to remain in treatment and emerge healthy and productive.

Hope Within Ministries: "Hope Within for the Hurting"

Grant amount: $5,000

Hope Within is committed to remaining open during the pandemic and continues to serve patients; in fact, it has experienced an exponential increase in the number of patient applications and inquiries for our services since the emergence of COVID-19 restrictions. While prior to the pandemic, we saw 3-5 new patients each week, last week we had 13 new patients, likely because they lost their jobs and/or their health insurance.

Keystone Human Services: "Support for those we serve in Lancaster"

Grant amount: $3,000

Over 250 Keystone Human Services employees provide care & support to nearly 200 individuals thru our Intellectual Disabilities & Mental Health Services in neighborhood homes in Lancaster County. The services provided vary according to the need, but for everyone served, those needs have increased. This is due to the fact that day programs have closed. As assisted individuals’ time at home has increased, so has employee work hours and weeks, all while putting the safety of everyone first.

Lancaster Health Center: "Project Telemedicine"

Grant amount: $5,760

As Lancaster’s community health center, our role is to serve our patients and reach deeper to engage those without a medical home. This proactive approach to care keeps residents out of emergency departments and preserves critical hospital services. As the City’s only COVID-19 testing site, LHC is pivoting most chronic care to telemedicine. Our immediate and tangible need is for headsets to help protect the ergonomic health of our staff who are now caring for patients via phone and video.

South Central PA Sickle Cell Council: "Emergency Relief"

Grant amount: $1,000

National health inequity within the minority community hits home in Lancaster County.

Kidney Foundation of Central PA: "COVID-19 Patient Emergency Assistance Fund"

Grant amount: $1,500

The Patient Emergency Assistance Program is an ongoing service and partnership program with registered Dialysis Centers. Patients navigate many challenges as a result of end stage renal disease (ESRD). Just a few weeks into the COVID-19 crisis, kidney patients are telling us that they’re suffering income loss, struggling to pay for life-sustaining medicines, overwhelmed about how to get to scheduled treatments, and need renal nutritional supplements to stay on prescribed treatment schedules.

UDS: "COVID-19 Emergency Fund"

Grant amount: $2,000

The Commonwealth has identified UDSF as a life-sustaining/life-critical business required to remain open. We provide services to individuals with disabilities who are considered to be the most vulnerable to contract COVID-19. Our staff continues to provide critical, life sustaining services during the pandemic by making home visits to provide vital care despite the challenging risks of COVID-19. Financial support will help UDSF to continue this essential work for people with disabilities.

Meeting these needs are only possible because of you

Thanks to your extraordinary generosity, Lancaster Cares has raised more than $800,000 to support our neighbors, friends, and families across Lancaster County. These are new and unpredictable challenges, and the solutions must change with them. But fortunately, what’s most important for creating these solutions has not changed: our extraordinary generosity is shining through these dark times.  Our roll-up-your-sleeves, get-the-job-done attitude will pull us through, as it has before. Our generosity is lifting our fellow Lancastrians up; keeping food on their tables, a roof over their heads, and maybe most importantly, offering the hope to see us all through this crisis. 

Thank you for supporting Lancaster Cares, and if you haven’t yet, give now at LancoCares.org!

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