Area nonprofits receive $200,000 from band’s BAMA Works Fund

The Charlottesville Area Community Foundation has announced more than $200,000 in grants from the Dave Matthews Band’s BAMA Works Fund, which awards grants twice per year. The foundation approved the grants, designed to support Charlottesville-area nonprofit organizations and recommended by the band, on Dec. 1:

Albemarle High School in Albemarle County: $3,500 to support the Jazz Ensemble’s participation in the Berklee School of Music Jazz Festival in Boston on Jan. 31.

Jack Jouett Middle School in Albemarle County: $2,000 for a pilot program to teach seventh-grade students to become environmentally responsible. The class has volunteered to clean Camp Holiday Trails working with Triple C Camp and start recycling at their school.

Stone-Robinson Elementary School in Albemarle County: $1,500 to pay for Lyrics Alive, a hands-on, one-week writing curriculum for 68 fourth-grade students to enhance their reading and writing skills in alignment with the Virginia Standards of Learning.

Stony Point Elementary School in Albemarle County: $1,600 for a project to expose 100 first and third grade at-risk students to a musical program focused on writing, singing and literacy.

Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay: $5,000 to take city youth, in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters, on a four-day trip on the James River to learn about water conservation, nature and environmental studies.

Building Goodness Foundation: $3,500 to create a Team Leadership Program to certify individuals to lead volunteer work teams on various local, national and international projects.

Walker Upper Elementary School in Charlottesville: $4,400 to build a solid inventory of working rental instruments for band students.

Charlottesville City Schools Adult Education Program: $6,000 to support the sixth annual Charlottesville Festival of Cultures, a free event where Charlottesville residents come together to celebrate their cultures.

Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA: $3,000 to spay and neuter cats and dogs in the area to reduce animal overpopulation in Central Virginia.

Children, Youth & Family Services: $4,500 to include Southwood Trailer Park in its CYFS Parenting Mobile program, an “on-wheels” service provider that brings family support workers into low-income neighborhoods to provide parenting education and enrichment activities for children.

Community Mediation Center of Charlottesville: $5,000 to pay the cost of training certified Hispanic mediators to serve the local community.

Computers4Kids: $6,000 to support the Grad Central program, which provides ongoing, long-term programming for Computers4Kids graduates.

Elk Hill Farm: $3,700 to fund nutrition, cooking and fitness classes for at-risk adolescent girls at the Spring Garden Group Home in Fluvanna County.

Ellis Acres Memorial Park Inc.: $6,000 to help build a community park in Buckingham County on the grounds of the former Buckingham Training Center, which will provide recreation opportunities and celebrate local history, including the struggle for civil rights and equal education.

Free Union Country School: $5,000 to build an amphitheater and outdoor classroom to increase opportunities for performing arts and environmental awareness.

Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline Council: $7,500 for Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program at Fluvanna Correction Center for Women, which teaches parenting skills to incarcerated mothers.

Gordonsville Friends of the Library: $10,000 to include a teen corner in the renovation of Gordonsville Library.

Grymes Memorial School: $2,000 for 17 eighth-grade students to participate in a three-day educational field trip to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Karen Noonan Center in Maryland, where students will study estuaries, the bay and learn about the environment.

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville-Women Build: $10,000 to support Women Who Build to construct a house for a low-income family in the greater Charlottesville area.

Ixtatan Foundation Inc.: $4,000 to send three Charlottesville teachers to participate in the Visiting Scholars Program at the Yinhatil Nab’en School in San Mateo Ixtatan, Guatemala.

Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center: $10,000 to support Camp Explore, an educational two-week summer program in May for Charlottesville-area children who are new immigrants and refugees.

Light House Studio: $3,000 to support Light House programs for 2008-09, including the Music Video workshop, the Keep It Reel program and the Outreach Initiative.

Live Arts: $5,000 to support the Pay What You Can Night and free Preview Night, which makes theater performances accessible to area residents who cannot normally afford to attend Live Arts.

Louisa County High School: $985 to be used to participate in the Memory Project, an art initiative that links local art students with orphaned children in Guatemala.

Manteo-Yogaville Emergency Response Squad Inc.: $7,500 to construct a building to house two emergency vehicles, medical equipment and a small office to provide first-responder emergency services to Buckingham County citizens.

Nelson County Community Development Foundation: $10,000 to provide dental care to low-income adult residents of Nelson County at the Nelson Dental Clinic.

Piedmont CASA: $9,000 to partially underwrite the cost of recruiting and training 17 new CASA volunteers to advocate for 30 abused and neglected children in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

Public Education Fund of Charlottesville-Albemarle: $5,000 to support Odyssey: 2025, a collaborative project designed to bring innovative approaches in math and science education to all public school students in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

Quest Institute Inc./Books Behind Bars: $8,000 to support an ongoing program to provide books free of charge to incarcerated people in Virginia prisons and to donate books to prison libraries.

Ronald McDonald House of Charlottesville: $4,620 to construct a privacy fence around a newly acquired lot adjacent to the house to enclose a playground for the families’ children.

Senior Center Inc.: $5,000 to support arts and humanities programs to enrich the lives of area seniors.

Service Dogs of Virginia: $7,500 to fund advanced training and placement of one service dog to aid an autistic child.

The James Foundation: $2,000 for The Shine Project, which will fund educational and recreational activities for 50 Charlottesville teens in foster care who need financial support to take music lessons, art classes or play sports.

The Second Road: $5,000 to create an online community for recovering and recovered alcohol and drug addicts customized to the specific needs of the clients.

The Women’s Initiative: $6,000 to support ongoing individual counseling services for low-income women.

Tuesday Evening Concert Series: $1,500 to provide a free children’s concert to 1,200 schoolchildren.

The University of Virginia’s Department of Pediatrics Diaper Duty Program: $7,000 to purchase and provide diapers and diaper-wipes to an estimated 100 low-income working families.

Wintergreen Adaptive Skiing: $10,000 for a therapeutic program for wounded servicemen and women — including kayaking, canoeing, golf, skiing and snowboarding weekends — and 10 weekly skiing or snowboarding lessons.

Wintergreen Nature Foundation: $3,000 to provide a forest management intern stipend, GPS equipment and vehicle maintenance to maintain a 30-mile hiking trail system at Wintergreen.

Work Source Enterprises: $10,000 for pre-vocational, educational and recreational day-support programs for people with severe disabilities.