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Organizations the Fund Supported in 2010

The Dunham Fund supports both programs and capital projects that respond to community needs primarily in the areas of Education and Community Development. In the first grant cycle of 2010, the Fund has awarded grants and scholarship funds totaling over $1 million with possible matching challenge grants of up to $190,000 to the following organizations: 

 

Dunham Fund First Cycle 2010 Grants

 

Communities In Schools Aurora Community Assessment Project/$450,000
This grant is contingent upon CIS successfully securing additional funding commitments of $150,000 to insure the sustainability of the project. The award was made to allow the CIS Community Assessment Project partners to develop a comprehensive, centralized system to collect and analyze data that will support community education and school-based initiatives and provide a resource for nonprofit agencies needing statistical, demographic and analytical data for grant-seeking inside and outside the Aurora area. By December 2011, data and information, identified as priority needs via stakeholders consensus will be available in a format accessible on-line by means of an open-access website dedicated to this project. The collaborative was initially awarded a second-place Dunham Fund Challenge for Change grant in 2009 for developing the community assessment program concept.

 

Institute for Collaboration's Mathematics and Science Education System/$250,000 grant (with an additional $150,000 challenge matching award of $1 for every $2 of new funding raised by the project collaborative)
This grant will enable Aurora University and its partners to advance the curriculum and related planning for the creation of a Magnate Academy for students in third through eighth grade gifted in math and science. This proposed innovative school will serve students from the East Aurora, Indian Prairie, Oswego and West Aurora school districts, as well as Aurora University students. In addition, the grant and potential matching funds will support the design of a comprehensive resource development plan necessary to raise the funds to make the academy a reality. The collaborative was awarded a first-place Dunham Fund Challenge for Change grant in 2009 for developing the math and science academy concept.

 

Waubonsee Community College Dunham Early College Academy/$105,000
Waubonsee Community College's Dunham Early College Academy received a Dunham Fund grant of up to $105,000, which includes $15,000 to fund the final year of the Early College Academy program and the fees for East and West Aurora high school juniors currently enrolled and eligible to complete their senior year in the DECA dual-credit program. The grant also includes up to $90,000 in full, two-year tuition, matched $1 for $1 by Waubonsee Community College, for any of the currently enrolled DECA students who successfully complete the program and apply and are accepted to WCC after high school graduation.

 

SciTech Hands On Museum/$50,000 grant (with an additional $1 match, up to an additional $25,000, for every $2 that SciTech can raise for one year from the date of the grant)
This Dunham Fund grant was made to support the SciTech Museum with operational support during a period of economic downturn and leadership turnover. SciTech's program is unique to the community and provides "hands on" science and technology programming to school-age children in the school districts and general admission for families in the Aurora area.

 

Joseph Corporation/$50,000
Joseph Corporation is a community-based nonprofit organization that focuses on affordable housing and counseling programs for homeowners. This grant was given specifically to provide JoCo clients with home foreclosure counseling.

 

Suicide Prevention Services, Inc./$49,400
In collaboration with Aurora University and Communities in Schools, Suicide Prevention Services will host community forums, conferences, professional training and outreach programming in the discipline of suicide prevention. The year-long public awareness campaign will be designed to enhance institutional and community responsiveness to persons at-risk, stressing suicide prevention through education.

 

DuPage Children's Museum/$26,000
The Dunham Fund awarded a grant to DuPage Children's Museum to support the implementation of the Kindergarten Math Initiative (KMI) for all kindergarten classrooms in Aurora School District 131 during the 2010-2011 school years. KMI is a school learning lab program at DuPage Children's Museum that uses a child-centered, hands-on approach to improve math literacy for kindergarten students and impacts later success in math. 

 

Rebuilding Together Aurora/$10,000 grant (with a matching challenge of $2 for every $1 of additional funding raised by RTA up to $15,000)
Rebuilding Together Aurora brings volunteers and communities together to improve the homes of low-income homeowners so that they may live in warmth, safety, and independence.  This grant was awarded for RTA's Year-Round Handyman program which provides smaller scale, more immediate repairs to low-income seniors and disabled homeowners, focusing on ADA modifications and fall prevention services.  For the Handyman program, RTA has partnered with Quad County Urban League's YouthBuild program that teaches youth, ages 16 to 24, construction trade skills in a classroom and real life setting.

 

Chicagoland Feed My Starving Children/$24,050
Feed My Starving Children is a hunger relief organization that utilizes 100% volunteer labor to package a specifically formulated and vitamin fortified rice mixture which is shipped to missionaries and humanitarian organizations in over sixty countries around the world to feed malnourished children. This Dunham Fund grant will purchase a forklift to move the inventory in the organization's Aurora warehouse onto fifty-foot tractor trailers for shipment.

 

Streator Unlimited/$20,000
The Dunham Fund has made this grant to support Streator Unlimited, Inc. which offers vocational training and residential services in five locations in Illinois. The agency is committed to enriching the lives of adults with disabilities by teaching skills that will enable them to reach their fullest potential, live as independently as possible, and become integrated into the community.

Click here to view the Organizations the Fund Supported in prior years.