Acton-Boxborough United Way's Community Impact Grants are determined through a community-driven process. It can be a truly eye-opening experience for grant volunteers to hear first-hand from so many agencies doing great work in our community. This year, we had a team of 20 community members serving as grant evaluators. The team had some really tough decisions to make. We had a greater number of applicants seeking a greater level of funding than we’ve had in recent history.
We’re grateful that our grants serve to drive programming to residents here in Acton and Boxborough, but we are subject to the same economic realities that are making more organizations seek more help from us, so it made for some really tough decisions.
In the end, we allocated $100,000 across 24 incredible agencies and are really excited about the work these organizations are doing, but we acknowledge that in most cases we were not able to grant nearly as much funding as they were seeking.
We know we have our work cut out for us in the coming year to be able to ramp up our grant funding to meet the increased need, so please, as you see our fundraising efforts come together over the next several months, think of these incredible agencies and how much we want to support them through ABUW to drive their critical services to AB residents.
Through our grant awards, we tackle food insecurity thanks to
- Acton Food Pantry,
- Mt Calvary Community Supper,
- Open Table, and
- Stow Food Pantry
Our grants provide childcare scholarships through
- Acton-Boxborough-Harvard-Littleton Early Childhood Council,
- A-B Community Ed Summer Day Program,
- Boys & Girls Club of Assabet Valley, and
- Doli Atamian Campership
They support care and case management for some of our most vulnerable neighbors:
- Acton Housing Authority,
- A Friend in Need,
- Domestic Violence Services Network,
- Minute Man Arc for Human Services,
- Eliot Community Human Services,
- Metrowest Legal Services,
- Minuteman Senior Services
And they bring an exciting range of additional programs to our neighbors:
- Danny’s Place Youth Services,
- English At Large,
- First Connections,
- Habitat for Humanity,
- Open Door Theater
This year, we also have several first time recipients:
- Aurelia’s Garden which grows fresh produce for local food pantries,
- Blanchard PTF to support construction of an accessible playground,
- Clear Path for Veterans offering veteran services and programming (did you know we have over 1000 vets between our two towns?),
- Virginia Thurston Healing Garden offering a range of services for the well-being of cancer patients.
A big congratulations to these 24 agencies that have been awarded funding for this next grant cycle. We are grateful to be able to offer funding to these incredible organizations doing such important work to support our community.