One Northside Mini-Grants close out 2021 with 20 funded projects

Posted on by Alyse Horn

Pittsburgh, PA — The 2021 One Northside Mini-Grant’s have come to a close with a total of 20 funded small-scale community projects that demonstrated support of their neighbors, helped strengthen connections, increased accessibility to resources, and activated significant places in their community. 

Including these projects, the total number of those completed since 2018 is 161.

This funding year challenged mini-grantees to create projects that adhered to COVID-19 guidelines while still supporting and interacting with their communities. 

One project, Community Breakfast, was led by Victoria Tyus and they served hot food to the homeless and anyone in need of a meal. During the pandemic, they have fed over 825 families monthly.

Tyus wrote, “Every first Tuesday, every fourth Wednesday, and every fourth Saturday, food [was] given out of the door of the church… We have been doin this for a long time but the only challenge is getting funds to keep purchasing food and supplies.” 

Another project, Daniel’s Den Cancer Foundation, has been in operations for 13 years and supports cancer patients and families. Their goal is to continue to reach out to the cancer community that is searching for support, financial help, and informative medical literature. 

Led by Roxanne Robinson, the foundation built on what they historically offer, and supplied cancer patients with stipends for $500 and gathered information to help patients with their diagnosis and proposed avenues to get additional help. They have a yearly luncheon coming up this October to help draw more support towards their cause.

Both Community Breakfast and Daniel’s Den Cancer Foundation were previously funded by a ONS Mini-Grant.

A new project during 2021 included Women’s Way: Stories of Motherhood in the Time of Covid, led by Sloane Davidson and Hello Neighbor. The project has partnered with other local nonprofits including City of Asylum, Sharing our Story, and Pittsburgh Hispanic Development Corporation to facilitate digital storytelling workshops for refugee and immigrant mothers and U.S. born mothers to share their experience of navigating motherhood in the time of COVID.

The event is scheduled to occur in 2022, and it is simultaneously being planned to be held virtually depending on the status of in-person events due to the pandemic. 

The complete list of 2021 ONS Mini-Grant projects include: 

  • Art From The Heart – Sheila D. Collins
  • Bee-Loved Bees – Mercedes Velasquez
  • Brighton Arts – Puppets and Poetry – Char Fields
  • Cedar Point – Char Fields
  • Community Breakfast – Victoria Tyus
  • Daniel’s Den Cancer Foundation -Roxanne L Robinson
  • Eat, Play, Love – A Family’s Journey to Wellness on the Northside – Gorman Gregory Searcy and Maria T. Searcy
  • Family Support Center – Stephen Weiss
  • Fierce & Fabulous Fashion Sewing Design Club – Ruby Helvy
  • Financial Literacy Workshop – Jamara White
  • Granny Tees and Things – Marlo Jones
  • Pittsburgh VegFest 2021 Northside – Leila Sleiman Head
  • Pjs Playhouse – Patricia Morgan
  • Spring Hill Community Garden – Melanie Sandoval
  • Spring Hill Gateway – Ruth Ann Dailey
  • Spring Hill Greenway Entrance – Karen Lucarelli Braden
  • Tabitha’s Daughters, LLC/A Day of Mindfulness & Kindfulness Too! – Maxine Garrett
  • The Garden Circle – Rose Thompson
  • Women’s Way: Stories of Motherhood in the Time of Covid – Sloane Davidson
  • Write Pittsburgh Online Journal – Vivian Lee Croft

For more information about ONS Mini-Grants, click here.

 

About New Sun Rising

New Sun Rising supports nonprofits and small businesses to build vibrant communities through culture, sustainability, and opportunity. NSR believes that people and communities hold the knowledge and power to make positive change. We envision a future where regenerative community development practices create the conditions for true social, environmental, and economic justice.

About One Northside

One  Northside is a community-driven initiative to improve the quality of life in all 18 neighborhoods of the Northside. Since early 2014, hundreds of Northside residents have engaged with local leaders and stakeholders in community-wide conversations to create a shared agenda for the revitalization of this vital component of the greater Pittsburgh region.