Some 17 St. Croix nonprofit organizations were selected to receive V.I. FirstBank Neighborhood Grants Thursday evening during a presentation at the Innovative Building. About a hundred people came out to the gala awards ceremony, held as part of the monthly St. Croix Chamber Business After Hours social affair.
This is the 12th year for this particular FirstBank grant program, said Sadie Taylor-Clendinen, marketing officer for the bank. The grants, from $500 to $2,000, are awarded to nonprofit organizations for projects promoting or sustaining economic development or assisting in revitalizing or stabilizing low- and moderate-income communities.
Among this year’s awardees were school groups working on green projects, United Way of St. Croix, athletic groups, and employment and training programs.
The first award given was the First in Service Grant, which is awarded to and shared by a student and the community organization where they have volunteered for at least a year.
This year Kendell Phillip got $500 for his work with the St. Croix Women’s Coalition, where he’s volunteered for the past five years.
Gone Green, an environmental club at Good Hope School, was awarded $500 to help its efforts. The student group is pushing the Legislature to ban plastic grocery bags in the territory and sells and gives away cloth bags, to encourage residents to cut back or stop using disposable plastic ones.
YouthBuild Director Carla Joseph and two young employees of the program accepted a check to help them keep going. YouthBuild trains young men and women in the territory in the trades and hires them to help renovate public housing.
Taylor-Clendinen and Linda Pukenas, marketing and public relations managers at V.I. FirstBank, chose those who were awarded grants this year. The bank gave out $30,000 in Neighborhood Grants to small groups and organizations this year, but that’s just one component of the bank’s annual giving, which will be about $250,000, territory-wide this year, Pukenas said.
"In the last five years we have given over $1.5 million to community organizations," she said. "As the leading financial institution in the territory, FirstBank feels strongly we should contribute to the territory and help out our V.I. neighbors."
The other honorees this year were: were Beyond Visions Foundation, Westside and Company, V.I. Housing Authority, Jr. Barracudas Track and Field Association, Strategic Solutions Network, Boys and Girls Clubs of the V.I. , Access to Racial and Cultural Health Institute, Baptist General Conference, St. Patrick’s Alumni Association, St. Croix Junior Golf Association, STAR Productions, Frederiksted Baptist Church and Positive Motivation Juvenile Rehabilitation Academy.
V.I. FirstBank will award Neighborhood Grants on St. Thomas Nov. 19.
