BCF grants $110K to nonprofits

The Bayou Community Foundation announced it has awarded 11 grants totaling $110,000 to nonprofit organizations in Lafourche, Terrebonne and Grand Isle, with nearly half of the awards this year dedicated to mental-health or substance abuse programming.

The foundation received 27 grant applications cumulatively requesting more than $480,000, the foundation’s coordinator Jennifer Armand said. A volunteer panel selected the grantees based on needs the programs would address, population and communities served and long-term impact.

As was the case last year, when BCF launched its grant-making program, issues of mental health and substance abuse received the largest chunk of funding.

“We have a lot of young people in the two-parish area that are dealing with substance abuse issues,” said J.J. Buquet, the foundation’s chairman. “We also have a lot of people with mental health problems, and this dovetails with a lot of funding cuts that have been made to the system.”

The South Central Louisiana Human Services Authority will receive $15,000 to support an ongoing mobile outreach program that provides mental-health counseling and treatment for residents who lack transportation to attend clinics.

The authority was founded in 2006 to serve seven parishes – it has treatment centers in Houma, LaPlace, Morgan City and Raceland. Its 40-foot-long mobile unit has two evaluation rooms and carries psychiatrists and nurses. Last year the authority received $40,000 from BCF and used the funds on salaries, supplies, fuel and maintenance, according to its director.

Options for Independence, another nonprofit recipient of grant funds last year, gets another $15,000 in support of its telecommunication child psychiatry program seeded with BCF’s $20,000 contribution last year.

“Instead of kids having to drive all the way to New Orleans and they don’t always have a means for transportation, they’re able to access services,” Buquet said.

START Corporation received $15,000 to implement a functional family therapy program to provide counseling and intervention to people from 11 to 18 years old who have behavioral disorders or issues with substance abuse.

The Assisi Bridge House, of the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, will get $5,000 to purchase drug-screening supplies so that it can better monitor and counsel its residents and an automated external defibrillator for medical emergencies.

Other recipients are:

• Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program: $23,000 to purchase a shallow-water vessel to transport plants and planting volunteers to inner-tidal marsh areas as art of BTNEP’s restorative planting programs.

• St. Vincent de Paul Tri-Parish Pharmacy: $15,000 to support ongoing program that provides free medication to the poor and elderly who qualify.

• Gulf Coast Social Services: $5,000 to support ongoing mentoring, education and career counseling programs for at-risk youth ages 10-20, as referred by juvenile justice authorities.

• Terrebonne Council on Aging: $5,000 for the “Take a Bite Out of Winter,” which provides energy-efficient space heaters to low-income elderly.

• The Nature Conservancy: $5,000 to support the Grand Isle Community Outreach and Education Program, which incorporates environmental education in school curricula and makes Grand Isle residents, students and teachers more aware of local environmental issues.

• Lafourche Parish School Board: $4,000 to purchase a 4-wheel hydraulic brake trainer to provide automotive students job training.

• Hope Extreme: $3,000 to support ongoing after-school and summer reading programs for low-income students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

BCF, a donor-advised fund of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, was formed in 2012 with $70,000 in donations from Charlotte Bollinger, J.J. Buquet, Arlen “Benny” Cenac, Al Danos, Alexis and Berwick Duval and Phyllis Taylor.

The Louisville, Kentucky-based Gheens Foundation awarded BCF a five-year $500,000 grant to help build a permanent grant-making fund. This money is handed down annually, and BCF is required match it with $1 million in private contributions.

“We have a little work to do,” Buquet said. One of the ways the foundation has boosted its donation total is serving as a clearinghouse, of sorts, for grants from local family foundations that are designed for a specific purpose.

For example, Buquet’s family foundation has granted money to BCF provided it was used to support the Terrebonne Foundation for Academic Excellence, he said. This funnels more money through BCF and counts toward the ultimate match. To be clear, the Gheens Foundation has signed off on that arrangement, Buquet said.

In its community needs assessment, the foundation identified several causes to support, including early childhood programming, care of the elderly and at-risk youth, workforce development, coastal preservation, rural access to health care and animal welfare.

Generating treatment for mental health and substance abuse was identified as the region’s most critical need in the BCF survey. Last year the group granted $115,000 to seven organizations, with $60,000 going toward mental health counseling and treatment.

Also last year, the foundation granted the Lafourche public school district money for workforce-training equipment, an award to an education foundation to expand a literacy program for pre-kindergarten students and funding for coastal restoration activities.

Ultimately, BCF officials hope to grow their annual grant-making capabilities, with Buquet acknowledging it’s difficult to help all of those who need it with $15,000 morsels at a time.

“It’s a slow, steady evolution of having a community foundation that can support health and human services, among other issues,” Buquet said.