The Manna Project was awarded a grant to double the size of their warehouse and improve their equipment to accommodate double digit growth in requests for their service. Located between Petoskey and Harbor Springs, the Manna Project is a unique provider of emergency food relief in Charlevoix and Emmet counties. They not only serve as a food pantry that distributes directly to families, but also as a regional “wholesale” food bank that serves as a distribution site for 38 partner pantries and non-profit agencies throughout the northern Michigan area.

Vulnerable families depend on the Manna Project for tangible help in the face of intense pressure to stay afloat. This project is designed to provide more efficient and more effective space for the distribution of food, with more nutrition, in useable portions for families.

Saint Mary’s Health Care (Saint Mary’s) received a grant to construct the Hauenstein Center - a new 138,000 square foot, four-story clinical building with adjacent parking structure, that will serve a variety of uses including being the cornerstone of a coordinated, continuum of care for brain and nervous system conditions, and housing a new and expanded emergency department.

Too often, west Michigan patients experiencing neuroscience disorders must navigate a fragmented system of providers that requires patients and their families to make appointments with multiple providers and travel to multiple sites throughout the region seeking needed services. The proposed Hauenstein Center is designed to address that fragmentation by providing rapid access to care by employing an integrated team of highly trained professionals in a one-stop, multidisciplinary environment.

This project is expected to help establish Saint Mary’s as the leading provider in neuroscience service delivery in West Michigan, which in-turn may lead to wealth generation for the community through service to non-local patients.
www.smmmc.org

Against the backdrop of a burgeoning medical mile in downtown Grand Rapids, the Grand Action Foundation led a $40 million campaign to add a signature facility to the Michigan Avenue gateway. The seven-story, 100,000-square-foot building will house Michigan State University’s new west Michigan medical school and make Grand Rapids the new headquarters of MSU’s College of Human Medicine.

The West Michigan expansion will have a focus on research that differentiates it from its East Lansing counterpart. Ultimately, the project also holds great promise for facilitating vital interactions between researchers and entrepreneurs and is expected to generate thousands of new jobs and over a billion dollars in output.

After a quarter century, the availability of reliable, high-quality childcare in Harbor Springs was interrupted by the announcement that the structure that housed the Holy Childhood Daycare and Preschool was being demolished. Mounting utility costs and the huge sums needed to bring the 90 year-old building up to code left the primary supplier of local childcare without a home.

In response, a group of community leaders rallied to form the Harbor Springs Community Daycare and Preschool, and embarked on a strategic planning process to seek a comprehensive solution to the area’s need for affordable, accessible, high-quality child care. In the interim, the Frey Foundation joined other funders in providing support to maintain operations in a temporary facility, retain staff and reduce the disruption to local families during the process.
www.holychildhoodchurch.org

The Grand Rapids Public Library (GRPL) received a grant to launch a fresh approach to improving early literacy. The plan, called Success from Birth, proposes to train librarians to help parents prepare their children to read, and ultimately better prepare them for kindergarten entry. Partnering with local colleges, the GRPL plans to develop curriculum designed to introduce their staff to early childhood development. Their staff, in turn, will work with parents to help demystify the process of learning to read. Outreach is an integral part of the plan with a particular emphasis on low-income and at-risk families.

Public libraries are in a remarkable position to expose children to great quantities of print and meaningful language opportunities that researchers agree are crucial to reading achievement. The GRPL plans to combine this expertise with an alternative approach to greatly influence the reading skills of young children before they enter kindergarten.
www.grpl.org

A three phase, $92.3 million campaign is underway at the John Ball Park Zoological Society as a part of a comprehensive facility master plan that, once complete, will dramatically alter the look and feel of the entire zoo.

The first phase is a planned 6-year, $29.6 million renovation and restoration that will showcase charismatic animals that naturally thrive in the local climate. Visitors will be thrilled to walk through forested paths and come face to face with gigantic animals including lions, tigers and grizzly bears. The new home for the grizzlies will be located just inside the John Ball Park Zoo’s entry and includes trees, grass, a stream and pools to provide enrichment for the animals and up-close experiences for the visitor. The big cat exhibit will feature an ambling trail that gradually leads visitors along easy to maneuver walkways. New technology that uses embedded acrylic panels will allow views that are literally inches from the animals.

Established in 1891, the John Ball Park Zoo is the tenth oldest in the United States. While it occupies 19 acres of a 103 acre park, it is only half the size of zoos in similar sized cities. The new exhibits are designed to raise the profile of this cultural gem while incorporating rich guest experiences and exciting educational opportunities to visitors.
www.johnballzoosociety.org

As a way to celebrate and commemorate Grand Rapids as the first city in the world to fluoridate its water the West Michigan Dental Foundation and the Fluoride Commemorative Committee launched a public art project. As plans for the construction of a new JW Marriott hotel nearby the site of a previous commemorative plaque on the Louis Campau Promenade were finalized, a partnership was struck between the hotelier and the project organizers and a site along the river and adjacent to the new hotel was selected for a new work of public art. The artist selection committee unanimously chose Dutch artist Cyril Lixenberg and his proposed work entitled “Steel Water” a laser cut steel structure, painted blue, which rises 33 feet from the plaza in which it sits less than 100 feet from the river and main entrance to the hotel. Organizers were successful in raising both public and private funds to see the project through to its unveiling in September 2007.
www.wmdds.org/foundation.php

The Little Traverse Conservancy along with the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy have had a long-standing interest in protecting the Jordan River watershed – one of Michigan’s most pristine and high-quality river systems. Recently, after the Little Traverse Conservancy was successful with the purchase and protection of the nearby 41-acre Jordan River Nature Preserve property in southern Charlevoix County, a neighboring family contacted the Conservancy to talk about the sale of their 85-acre property along the Jordan. The successful completion of this project would mean that 3 ¼ miles of a total 4 mile “spreads” region at the mouth of the Jordan River will be permanently protected. This region plays a critical wetlands-like role in retaining large amounts of water during spring melt-off and heavy rains as well as protecting Lake Charlevoix by absorbing excess nutrients and sediments running off land within the watershed. These fertile lands are also important to numerous wildlife including nesting waterfowl, song birds, otter, mink and a long-returning pair of bald eagles that nest near the northern border of the property.

Additional parcels in the spreads area are owned and protected by the City of East Jordan, the State of Michigan and through other property owners with easements on their land. The Little Traverse Conservancy will turn the parcel into a nature preserve that will be open to the public, likely with a trail system for hikers, students and anglers to use.
www.landtrust.org

As an out-growth of a grant made to the City of East Grand Rapids for the completion of the Reeds Lake Trail, leadership from the City of Grand Rapids and the City of East Grand Rapids were brought together with a goal of discussing and encouraging cooperation on an inner-city east-west trail connector between the Reeds Lake Trail and Kent Trails near John Ball Park. Subsequently a grant was awarded to the Grand Valley Metro Council to assist with bringing in an experienced and competent designer of bicycle facilities in urban settings. The collaborating partners and facilitator will examine route alternatives –likely a combination of dedicated on-street lanes and sidewalk – convene local businesses and neighbors along the proposed route and develop a replicable plan for implementation and connectivity.
www.gvmc.org

The Grand Rapids Community Foundation received support on behalf of a local group of historians, writers and filmmakers who have come together to capture the history of the 20th century visionaries and philanthropists who gave of their time and talent to help make Grand Rapids the vibrant, growing, city it is today. This group plans to create a high-definition video collection of interviews with approximately 30 local philanthropists to preserve their stories, in their own words, of how and why they became givers, and how a community of generous citizens came to work together to create a culture of prosperity that sets Grand Rapids apart from other cities its size.

The video collection, once complete, will be donated to the Grand Rapids Public Library to be shared with future generations. It will also be shared through public television both locally and nationally.
www.grfoundation.org

The Council of Michigan Foundations (CMF) received a grant in support of the Office of Foundation Liaison – the nation’s first-ever, cabinet level position for philanthropy within a state government. The creation of this appointment marked the state’s first formal partnership with the foundation community and amplifies the voice of philanthropy in the provision of information that is useful to the development of good public policy.

The Office of Foundation Liaison works with the Governor, state legislators, federal officials, foundations, and the business community to build relationships among those at the state level responsible for critical decisions regarding issues of particular importance to the broader funding community, including land use management and early childhood development.
www.cmif.org