Fifteen nonprofits in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties will benefit from grants of $905,500 from the Peninsula Community Foundation.
This second round of quarterly grants raises the total grants to community organizations to more than $2 million for 2006.
The Ravenswood Family Health Center in East Palo Alto, will be the chief beneficiary of this round of grants, with $250,000 to strengthen its capacity to provide medical services to underserved populations in Menlo Park, East Palo Alto and North Fair Oaks.
Since it opened in 2000, the center has provided more than 80,000 medical, health, education, immunization and social service visits, and enrolled almost 14,000 different patients.
These patients are under social and financial stress: 97 percent have incomes less than 200 percent of poverty level; 70 percent are Latino; and 61 percent are uninsured.
This is the second year the center has received this operating grant, said Kathleen Alexander of Woodside, development director. “This year we will focus on increasing revenue from insurance.” That means enrolling people, particularly children, in existing insurance programs, like Healthy Families and Healthy Kids, she explained.
Other programs providing services in South San Mateo County that received grants include:
• San Mateo County’s Prenatal-to-Three Initiative, which will receive $150,000 to promote prenatal and family health for low-income families;
• The San Mateo County Office of Education, which will receive $60,000 to strengthen first and second language development programs for small children in both English and Spanish.
The Peninsula Community Foundation has been supporting charities and nonprofits in the community since 1964. With assets of over $611 million, it handles over 750 individual charitable funds. Last year, it awarded $92 million in grants to more than 2,000 organizations through its Endowment for the Community.
For information, call 358-9369, or go to pcf.org.
