Delaware COVID-19 Strategic Response Fund awards grants

In its first round of grants, the Delaware COVID-19 Strategic Response Fund awarded $350,000 to 11 nonprofit organizations providing services to communities throughout the state.

The grants will address a broad range of community needs during the pandemic. Local grantees are: Modern Maturity, $50,000 to deliver additional meals to seniors at their homes; Brandywine Counseling, $25,000 to meet increased demand for recovery services; YMCA, $50,000 for childcare for essential workers statewide; Easterseals of Delaware & Maryland’s Eastern Shore, $29,000 for telehealth equipment to provide child intervention services; CHEER: $38,000 delivering additional meals to seniors at their homes; and Community Resource Center of Sussex County, $10,000 for housing vouchers for the homeless.

In this first round, 95 applicants requested a total of $3.9 million. The initial awards represent 23 percent of the total $1.5 million raised to date for the COVID-19 Strategic Response Fund, which is housed at the Delaware Community Foundation. 

The goal is for the fund, which launched March 18, to provide grants for several months, said DCF President and CEO Stuart Comstock-Gay, who chairs the fund’s decision-making council. To do that, additional dollars are needed.

“In the coming weeks, the needs of the community are going to evolve and grow,” said Comstock-Gay. “We are doing deep work to make sure these dollars go to the organizations who have boots on the ground, providing food, shelter, medical attention, childcare and other essential services to the people who need help most.”

For more information or to donate, go to www.delcf.org/covid19-fund.