The Daron and Ron Barness Family Foundation has announced $220,000 in grants, ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, to Jewish and secular nonprofit organizations through its 2007 General Grants Program.
The recipients were chosen from among more than 80 applicants.
"The quality of the organizations and the requests made was extremely high," said Ron Barness via e-mail. He co-founded the foundation with his wife, Daron. "We focused on our priorities, which are issues relating to the Jewish community, Israel, children and the elderly, in making our final decisions."
The largest grant, $50,000, went to the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Phoenix to fund a challenge grant over five years to aid the Jewish Genetic Diseases Center of Greater Phoenix.
The foundation is serving as the fiscal agent for the center until the center receives 501(c)(3) status from the Internal Revenue Service, said Stuart Turgel, foundation president, in an e-mail.
"We have helped this center for several years now and believe the cause to be incredibly important," Barness said. The center provides affordable screening to young couples to determine if they are carriers of a variety of debilitating and/or deadly genetic diseases known to frequently occur among Ashkenazic Jews.
"If someone goes to a private lab to be screened, it will cost between $2,500 and $3,000, while we can offer it to them for $50," said Andi Minkoff, who co-founded the center with her husband, Dr. Sherman Minkoff.
"Because we're doing mass screenings for 100-plus individuals, we can get a much more favorable price structure" from the nonprofit lab they use, added Sherman Minkoff.
However, the fees that couples pay do not cover the entire cost, he said, and hence the desire to create a fund to help keep the testing affordable in the future.
The center must match $10,000 a year each year of the grant. "That doesn't faze us at all," said Andi Minkoff, because "we need the community to step forward in that amount and more."
The center, which did its first screening in 2005, offers the mass screening once a year, but would like to offer it twice a year in the near future, she said. (The next screening is planned for March 30, 2008.)
While the center is one of the newest local agencies receiving a grant, the venerable Kivel Campus of Care in Phoenix, which opened in 1958, has also received a grant. The $10,000 will help replace the original hand-cranked beds at the elder-care facility, said Ira Shulman, Kivel's CEO.
"It's time (to replace them)," he said. "I think the grant is incredibly generous and definitely supports our mission."
At about $1,500 a bed, the cost to replace all 125 hand-cranked beds is $187,500, he said. The grant will fund about seven of the beds, he added.
While these grants care for the needs of the body, a grant to Hillel at Arizona State University in Tempe cares for the needs of the mind and soul.
The foundation awarded $10,000 to Hillel, the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, to fund a program called "Developing A Moral Compass."
"Our world is very complicated and things that were once taken for granted about the way people should behave and act are all up for grabs," said Rabbi Barton Lee, Hillel at ASU's executive director. "Students are beset by difficult choices."
The program will provide eminent speakers and local resources to help students wrestle with the issues of ethics and morals in public and private arenas, he said, "and bring to bear on them Jewish ideas and insights in all these areas."
"We're thrilled to raise Hillel's profile and do something that will enrich the entire campus community," he said.
The other Jewish grant recipients are:
- Jewish Family & Children's Service in Phoenix, which was awarded $10,000 to support the Jewish Chaplaincy Program. The grant will help expand the program in Maricopa County for unaffiliated Jews who have nowhere to turn for spiritual guidance. JFCS is seeking to double the availability of spiritual services to unaffiliated Jews hospitalized in the Valley.
- Jewish Free Loan in Phoenix, which was awarded $20,000 to establish the Daron and Ron Barness Family Foundation College Education Loan Fund. It will provide interest-free college loans to Valley Jewish students.
- The Israel Project Inc. in Washington, D.C., which was awarded $25,000 for its Media Fellows Project. This is an initiative that trains college and graduate students on how to use strategic communications to promote Israel's interests in the mass media.
- Table to Table in Ra'anana, Israel, which was awarded $25,000 for Project Leket. The project's estimated 36,000 volunteers glean agricultural produce left in fields by Israeli farmers at the end of the season's harvest. The produce is redistributed for free to 85 nongovernmental organizations throughout Israel that care for the needy.
- Yad Sarah in Jerusalem, which was awarded $10,000 for Keep the Wheels Turning: A Project to Purchase Wheelchairs for Free Loan Across Israel. More than 240,000 people borrow free equipment from more than 100 Yad Sarah branches across Israel. The grant will help Yad Sarah add 43 wheelchairs for it to lend.
Grants were also awarded to:
- Arizona Science Center in Phoenix, ($10,000) to increase the number of youths and teachers from schools in inner cities and rural communities who receive complimentary field trips, teacher training and materials, as well as in-class demonstrations.
- Childsplay Inc. in Tempe, ($25,000), to support its 2007-08 School Touring Program, which will provide 130,000 K-8 students with professional productions and theater education activities in their schools.
- Partnership for a Drug Free America, Arizona Chapter in Phoenix, ($20,000) to help bolster teen drug-prevention efforts.
- Waste Not Inc. in Scottsdale, ($5,000) to pay delivery truck fuel expenses for two months. Waste Not collects and delivers food that would otherwise go to waste to agencies that serve at-risk, low-income children.
Visit barnessfoundation.com.
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