COVID-10 Response & Justice Fund Grant Award Honorees
Given the urgency of this moment, PBGC led an intensive fundraising campaign in May 2020 to raise money to support Black-led, Black-serving organizations in Philadelphia on the frontlines of the fight for the safety and well-being of the Black community at this time, with 100% of the funds raised to be given to selected organizations.
The Philadelphia Black Giving Circle (PBGC) was proud to hold its first virtual grant award ceremony on Wednesday, August 26, 2020. During the ceremony, Dr. Jackie Bouvier Copeland, Black Philanthropy Month Founder, raised awareness about the importance of investing in the Black community. PBGC also announced the 11 grantees for this Fund, totaling $115,000. Each organization received general operating support and given the opportunity to speak about their work and their missions.
Learn more about the honorees!
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2020 GRANT AWARD HONOREES!
Agape african senior centeR
Agape aims to help elderly African refugees, other at risk seniors and people with disabilities, to combat the acute isolation they experience when they resettle in the US by providing instruction in English as a Second Language (ESL) and Adult Literacy, Spiritual enrichment, facilitating peer support groups, and citizenship training. Agape also provides opportunities for seniors to give back by sharing experiences with University and High School students, and other American Seniors.
Website: www.agapeseniorsphiladelphia.org
BLACK DOCTORS COVID-19 CONSORTIUM
Education and Advocacy for African Americans to reduce the incidence of disease and death from coronavirus. African Americans are being diagnosed at a disproportionately higher rate than other groups and are dying from coronavirus at a higher rate than other groups. To address that need, the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium was born. We have built a mobile COVID-19 testing operation. Our goal with the mobile unit is to provide a testing alternative that is BARRIER FREE to test for coronavirus disease in our hardest-hit areas of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
WEBSITE: www.blackdoctorsconsortium.com/
Black men heal
Black Men Heal provides access to mental health treatment, psycho-education, and community resources to men of color. They provide access to free mental health services, men are able to convene to discuss issues that affect them, and offer an opportunity for therapists to receive clinical hours for licensing.
Website: www.blackmenheal.org
community transformation partners
Community Transformation Partners, a non-profit Community Development Corporation, exists to support real estate development partners in implementing initiatives and programs that promote public health, holistic wellness and economic mobility for racial and cultural groups who have been historically marginalized. We operate from the premise that all people and places have the potential to transform when included in an intentional process that seeks to design sustainable healthy communities.
Our platform curates diverse programs and initiatives that liberate participants from all forms of oppression. Our approaches are strength based. Embedded within our organization is a strategic learning framework that utilizes evaluation data as inputs for continuous quality improvements.
Website: www.ctpcdc.org
ECO FOundation
The ECO Foundation creatively educates people through art and entertainment while connecting them with opportunities to better themselves and their communities. ECO is building a world where people love themselves, and use their purpose to make it a better place.
Website: www.ecofoundation.org
Miriam Medical Clinic
Miriam Clinics, Inc (MMC) provides multi-disciplinary competent, compassionate and accessible health care regardless of ability to pay. MMC recognizes that there is a need for healthcare access to be provided to underserved citizens, who for any number of reasons, cannot obtain affordable care. In this awareness, there is also the appreciation that healthcare must be provided with a complete acknowledgment of the dignity, respect, and integrity desired by each patient. Addressing these needs fosters full participation of the patient in his/her care. Therefore, our vision is to contribute to and witness the development of physically and spiritually healthy and whole communities in urban areas.
Website: www.miriammedical.org
Ones up
Ones Up draws its roots under the name of Rising Sons as a student male discussion group, founded at Ursinus College after an unfortunate racial incident occurred on campus. Our group’s purpose was to unite the underrepresented male students on the campus as they conversed about issues facing their communities.
Ones Up aims to improve the lives of young adults so they can empower their communities. To build communities that are economically self sustainable and will improve equitable access to wellness, economic mobility, and better quality of life.
Website: www.onesup.org
Oshun Family center
The core mission of Oshun Family Center is to provide racially concordant care to members of the Black community that are struggling to cope with life transitions. Especially those impacted by postpartum mood changes, birth, and racial trauma. It is their goal to center the experiences of Black people and create a welcoming space for healing and refuge.
In response to the recent deaths of Ahmad Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, Oshun Family Center launched a fundraiser on June 3rd with a goal of raising $5,000. Within 24hrs, they exceeded our goal and to date raised over $100k. With this initiative, they focused on the impact of racial trauma on the Black community. It is important for allies to support our mission as healing is paramount in the upward mobility of the Black community. Oshun is working to continue raising funds to set our roots in Philadelphia by building the organization and contributing to economic development.
Website: www.oshunfamilycenter.org
philadelphia bail fund
Philadelphia Bail Fund pays bail at the earliest possible moment for people who are indigent and cannot afford bail — ideally before they are transferred from their holding cell to jail. The Philadelphia Bail Fund also subjects the impact of its work to evaluation and uses the results to educate policymakers and lobby for reform.
website: www.phillybailfund.org
philadelphia community bail fund
Philadelphia Community Bail Fund (PCBF) aims to end cash bail in the City of Philadelphia. Until that day, they post bail for neighbors who cannot afford to pay.
PCBF is coordinating with the sibling bail fund, Philadelphia Bail Fund, to quickly secure the freedom of as many of our neighbors as we can in the wake of COVID-19. Prisons are notoriously unsanitary places where our neighbors are warehoused with woefully inadequate medical care. As of July 17, 2020 PCBF alone has freed 237 people for a total of $2,191,750.
website: www.phillybailout.org
sankofa healing studio
Sankofa Healing Studio recognizes, names, and promotes healing from the impact of systemic racism on the Black Community. Racial trauma is pervasive and insidious. Studies have shown that racial trauma in the Black community is directly connected to shorter lifespans, higher rates of poverty, limited access to quality education, health disparities, increased maternal mortality, and an overall decreased sense of hope. This traumatic stress is often magnified by the lack of space to name, express, and heal from it. Sankofa Healing Studio recognizes the healing power of deep community. Their motto is “Reclaiming our past provides us with valuable knowledge to protect our future while understanding and shifting our present condition.”
website: www.sankofahealingstudio.org
She Can Win
She Can Win works to recruit, educate, and support women who desire leadership roles in the civic space. Furthermore, to inspire young girls in future generations to soar and reach their full potential. She Can Win works to create parity in the political realm. They believe that by providing the necessary resources and trainings that we are not only encouraging more women to run, but are placing more women in elected seats. She Can Win actively promotes equal representation.
Website: www.shecanwin.net
The Colored Girl Museum
The Colored Girls Museum is a memoir museum, which honors the stories, experiences, and history of ordinary Colored Girls. This museum initiates the object—submitted by the colored girl herself, as representative of an aspect of her story and personal history, which she finds meaningful; her object embodies her experience and expression of being a Colored Girl. The Colored Girls Museum is headquartered in the historic neighborhood of Germantown in Philadelphia, an area renowned for its compliment of historic buildings and homes.
Website: www.thecoloredgirlsmuseum.com
theatre in the x
Theatre in the X was created in 2013 to provide the people of West Philadelphia and the African American community at large the opportunity to see professional quality theater in their own neighborhood for no cost. By removing the barriers of location and price the audience is able to experience theater that they possibly would not be able to access otherwise. Theatre in the X also provides opportunities to playwrights, actors, directors, stage managers, DJs, sound engineers and vendors of color.
website: www.theatreinthex.com
Womanist Working Collective
The Womanist Working Collective is a radical grassroots social action and support collective for Black folks of marginalized gender experience, specifically women (trans* and cis), femmes, and other gender expansive folx. While this language will never be enough to encapsulate all of the Black folx we center, we want to be clear that we affirm the full breadth of Black gender expansiveness and explicitly reject cissexism. This Community of Practice unapologetically centers Quality of Life and livelihoods through Community Organizing, Mutual Aid and Holistic Wellness.
website: www.womanistworkingcollective.org
Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout, Inc.
YEAH works to create safe and authentic hangout spaces by providing culturally relevant engagement and implementing teen led interventions to address the root causes of violence. Utilizing teen action, YEAH works to interrupt the cycle of youth community violence in West and Southwest Philadelphia neighborhoods through peer led mediation and conflict resolution, community engagement, and economic opportunities.
