Contact: Christle Balvin: (626) 792-6463

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 15, 2006

STRENGTHENING PASADENA ONE DONATION AT A TIME:
PASADENA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION AWARDS $734,143

Forty-four non-profit service agencies in the greater Pasadena area just got word that they are the recipients of grants from the Pasadena Community Foundation. The Pasadena Community Foundation has granted more than $32 million to non-profit organizations over is its 53-year history. About half of this has been in Foundation directed grants to local agencies. The other half has been in the form of donor advised grants to organizations all over the country. This year, local grants ranged from as little as $2,400 to $50,000 for a total of $734.143. “What distinguishes a Community Foundation is that our source of funds comes not from a single donor but rather from a pool of community donors. Every gift, no matter what the size, is important and helps make us a permanent resource supporting Pasadena’s changing needs,” says PCF Executive Director, Jennifer DeVoll.

Each year, members of the 11-person board make site visits to most of the organizations applying for grants. This year, 40 sites were visited, each one serving a different community need. “We met with the young, hip and energetic directors of the Furious Theatre who are bringing weekend theatre to the next generation at the Pasadena Playhouse. And we spoke with a heroin addict who now runs a rehab facility as well as an educational consultant who gives 10% of her company’s gross profits to tutor and mentor kids at risk of dropping out of high school. These agencies and the people who operate them inspire us all,” says Jennifer DeVoll.

One of the recipients of a 2006 major grant of $50,000 is the 45-year-old Mothers’ Club that had outgrown its former home at the Orange Grove Friends Meeting House and is renovating a building at 980 North Fair Oaks, the former office of the American Friends Service Committee. Making a building child friendly is costly. That’s why “this grant means so much to us at Mothers’ Club because it tells us that the community is supporting us in this truly transformational undertaking,” says Susan Kujawa, Executive Director of the Mothers’ Club Community Center. “We are looking forward to serving more families in our new site and increasing our opportunities to join together with the many other Pasadena organizations working to strengthen families in our community.”

The Pasadena Community Foundation serves as a leader, catalyst and resource for philanthropy and seeks to improve the lives of people in the greater Pasadena area, now and for future generations. To fulfill our mission, PCF provides grants and assistance to nurture and strengthen a wide variety of community organizations. For example, this year’s grant to Pasadena Meals on Wheels will help assure heir lunches while another grant to Kidspace provides a minivan for off-site art and educational programs. The Huntington Memorial Hospital will now be able to purchase two neo-natal scales for labor and delivery while the Pasadena Ronald McDonald House will get carpet cleaners and air purification systems for families needing to be near their children at the hospital. And the new cameras at the Pasadena Public Access Corporation will project a clearer image of community-based programming going out over the airwaves on PCAC, cable Channel 56. All of this is due to community donors who contribute to the Pasadena Community Foundation, a foundation for our community.

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