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Established as a vehicle to provide funding for local non-profit organizations in 2012, the Bayou Community Foundation has seen tremendous growth in just three short years and is constantly evolving to help groups focused on human services, education and workforce development and coastal preservation meet the needs of Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes and Grand Isle.
Local leaders Charlotte Bollinger, J.J. Buquet, Arlen “Benny” Cenac Jr. and Berwick and Alexis Duval, recognizing a need for community assistance following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill, set out to create a group that primarily focused on helping those who depend on private sector donations. Establishing the Bayou Community Foundation through a partnership with the Greater New Orleans Foundation, an organization created in 1983 to service Orleans and 12 surrounding parishes they believe are interconnected, the group now provides grant money and various programs to do their part in helping community organizations flourish.
“I think our work has expanded compared to the initial establishment of the group, but our mission remains the same,” Bayou Community Foundation Coordinator Jennifer Armand said. “We are committed to supporting our non-profits, providing critical services to meet unmet needs of our community. Originally, I think the focus was just on the grants, but in the past year, we’ve really expanded it to include workshops for our local non-profits.”
Shortly after establishment, the foundation was awarded a 5-year, $500,000 challenge grant from The Gheens Foundation, created in 1957 by C. Edwin and Mary Jo Gheens to continue lifelong passions for education, religious programs and human services. The Foundation raised $1 million by April 2015 to match the initial funding and has given out over $300,000 in grants in just three years.
“Our founding members realized that our community lacked what we like to call a ‘bucket,’” Armand explained. “We lacked a place to serve as a resource for our whole community, not just during times of crisis or natural disaster … With the Gheens Foundation $500,000 plus the $1 million that we’ve already reached in a match, I think we’ve really made a solid bucket so far. We’ve really demonstrated the power of a community foundation.”
This year, the Bayou Community Foundation awarded $146,600 to 22 non-profit organizations as part of its third annual competitive grants program. Fifty-seven proposals were submitted for consideration by a volunteer grants committee and 22 were selected to receive varying amounts of funding depending on needs expressed.
CASA of Terrebonne, which advocates for children in foster care, received $10,000 through this year’s grants program. Executive Director Nicole Wesley said the funds will go directly to ensuring there are enough people to meet the needs of those without a voice. The non-profit organization will focus on recruiting a diverse group of volunteers, especially men and minorities, to match the diverse group of children the organization serves.
“We’re extremely excited,” Wesley said. “We were literally screaming in the building when we received the notice that we got the award. We rely heavily on donations so that we can continue our advocacy work and without volunteers, we can’t advocate for the kids in court. This money is very important to us to continue our efforts.”
For Thibodaux’s Crossroads Pregnancy Center, the $7,500 it received will go toward getting more women through the doors and continue its work with younger generations. Plans include using the funds for school programs targeting middle school and high school girls discussing the consequences of early sexual behavior and how to handle the changes experienced as the students enter pre-teen and teen years. Crossroads will also dedicate some of the funds to promoting reconciliation and recovery services following infant loss, abortion or infertility, an area that Executive Director Adrienne Naquin-Bolton said they are working to better publicize.
“The reconciliation and recovery part of our program has been slow in coming and I think by getting the grant money, it’ll help us push our marketing efforts to get more women to find out about us and maybe just break through that shame and stigma so they can come in and heal from it,” Naquin-Bolton said. “It holds us accountable. We’ve been having this as something we offer but due to the fact that we don’t have many women contacting us about this, it hasn’t really pushed us. I think this grant is really going to light the fire under us and push us to really be accountable and make sure these programs are up and running.”
To keep the funding flowing throughout the year, the foundation also coordinated the first Bayou Region GiveNOLA Day, a one-day online giving event in May hosted by the Greater New Orleans Foundation to encourage community members to give generously to local non-profit organizations. Forty groups participated from Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes and roughly $40,000 was generated over the 24-hour period.
The organizations also shared more than $10,000 from the Al Danos Jr. Memorial Lagniappe Fund, fueled by contributions from T. Baker Smith’s fundraising effort, TBS Spark; lunch sales in Houma and Raceland; and a percentage of one-day sales from Roly Poly of Houma.
Danos was a retired owner of Danos & Curole and a Bayou Community Foundation Board Member who passed away in January.
“He was such a generous, kind man that was so full of life,” Armand said. “It was such an honor to have him as part of the organization … We thought it was very fitting to create a lagniappe fund in his honor. It was exactly what it says – just a little lagniappe to help these organizations.”
As the bucket continues to be filled, the foundation, Armand said, hopes to continue growing, strengthening community partnerships to facilitate needs in the area. Free workshops on fundraising and the like have been hosted over the past year and more are in the works and small meetings will be held in the coming months to encourage more residents to get on board with the group’s mission.
“We hope to continue to strengthen and grow in contributions and in grants and in our impact on the community,” Armand explained. “The support we have received over the past three years has just surpassed our goals and we hope to see that continue.”
CASA of Terrebonne Executive Director Nicole Wesley, Board Member Pastor R. Don Ross and Community Relations Coordinator Nicole Oncale accept a grant for $10,000 from Bayou Community Foundation Chairman Stephen Peltier on June 30 at Terrebonne Parish Main Library.
