Youth grants focus on healing and helping

By Nicole Montesano   

Smoke Signals staff writer

The Youth Grantmakers Program celebrated its third year of giving with a check presentation at Spirit Mountain Casino on Wednesday, Aug. 7.

Grantmakers were Tribal youth interns for the Spirit Mountain Community Fund, the philanthropic arm of the Tribe. They included Cohen Haller, Annabelle Guardiola, Laila Holmes, Mikayla Mercier and Laney DeLoe.

The program was originally the brainchild of Tribal Council Secretary Michael Cherry while she served as the fund’s executive director.

Working together with now-Executive Director Angie Sears, then a program coordinator, the two developed the program. It was proposed it to SMCF Board of Trustees and approved in July 2019. However, it took longer than expected to implement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The program was developed for Grand Ronde Tribal youth to engage Native students with philanthropy, grantmaking and community service. It is designed to introduce the youth to nonprofit organizations, allowing them to better understand the need for assistance in local communities and learn how they can help make a difference, while also earning high school credit through volunteerism. The youth grantmakers are hired through the Tribe’s Summer Youth Internship Program.

One of the five grantees was A Family for Every Child of Eugene.

During the 2023 school year, more than 2,000 Lane County youth were experiencing homelessness, either couch surfing, staying in shelters or unsheltered, according to Executive Director Megan Anderson.

“(Of those), 537 are unaccompanied, meaning they don’t have an adult person in their life providing them with some degree of support,” she said.

A Family for Every Child operates a licensed adoption agency and matching services placing children in foster care from all over the country with families in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, according to its application. It also operates a youth center in Eugene that opened in February.

Anderson said the grant from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund will enable it to partner with people in rural communities that are already serving youth by offering pop-up youth centers in the more rural areas of Lane County to provide homeless youth with services that are otherwise hard to come by.

“It’s harder to get to services, but when you do get to them, there’s just less of them,” Anderson said. 

Funds from the grant will help to purchase supplies such as folding tables and chairs, a canopy for outdoor venues, marketing materials and a starter supply of common items requested by unhoused youth.

In addition, the agency will provide case management, referrals and essential counseling services at the pop-up centers, according to its application.

 “We’re so grateful we have what we need to get started,” Anderson said.

Healing and helping were the twin themes of the five programs the interns chose this year. Each program received a check for $5,000.

Sears said in an email that the interns chose from a list of nonprofit organizations that the Community Fund has funded in the past few years. The interns then invited each of the nonprofit organizations to submit a special grant application.

After reviewing the applications, Sears said, the interns met with each of the nonprofit organizations to ask questions and learn more about their work. They also volunteered if there was an opportunity to do so and presented their recommendations for funding to the fund’s board of trustees. Then, the board voted to fully fund all five of the selected organizations.

During the check presentation portion, Tribal Council members Kathleen George, Brenda Tuomi and Denise Harvey attended.

 Each of the representatives for the programs received a beaded necklace from the Tribe, including Courthouse Facilities dog Xander, who works for ABC House providing emotional support for traumatized children. Xander’s friendly, gentle demeanor also won him the affection of the Community Fund interns and passersby.

The Grand Ronde singers drummed and sang for the ceremony. George delivered the invocation.

The programs selected were:

• ABC House Inc. of Albany, for providing vital care for children impacted by trauma and abuse, chosen by Haller.
• Daisy C.H.A.I.N. of Eugene, for providing equitable health programs for pregnant and parenting individuals, chosen by
• A Family for Every Child of Eugene, for providing pop-up youth centers, chosen by Holmes.
• Liberty House of Salem, for helping children heal through access to therapy, chosen by Mercier.
• Linn County Animal Rescue, for healing hearts with horses, chosen by DeLoe.

The Community Fund also held a drawing for an Ikanum saddle blanket, which went to A Family for Every Child.