The Horizon Foundation announced today that they awarded a total of $2.425 million in grants to 74 organizations in 2020 as part of its mission to improve health and wellness for people who live or work in Howard County, Md. The grants focus on advancing the Foundation’s three strategic priorities – promoting healthy kids and families, encouraging healthy aging and ensuring a more equitable community – including emphasizing mental health for both children and adults.
Within the total, the Horizon Foundation also awarded over $1 million to meet emergency health needs caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The Foundation also collaborated with the Community Foundation of Howard County, United Way of Central Maryland and the Women’s Giving Circle of Howard County to form HoCoRespond, a joint platform to raise funds and make grants to nonprofits responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Together, the four organizations awarded over $600,000 in grants to date.
“As we all know, 2020 presented enormous challenges to our health care workers, medical facilities and local nonprofits on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Nikki Highsmith Vernick, president and CEO of the Foundation. “We will continue to do our part as a community health foundation to step up and support our community during and beyond this crisis. As always, we are proud to work in partnership with all of our grantees to make Howard County a healthier and more equitable place for everyone.”
The full list of grantees and grant amounts is included below.
Promoting Healthy Kids & Families
CASA: $75,000 to reach, educate and mobilize the County’s growing Latino community and support the Foundation’s priority areas including equity, chronic disease and mental health.
Maryland Matters: $20,000 to continue expanding news coverage of public health issues at both the state and local levels.
Maryland Nonprofits: $5,250 to provide assistance and counsel to a subset of Foundation grantees.
Maryland State Medical Society (MedChi): $200,000 to support Sugar Free Kids Maryland and the LOCAL Maryland Coalition. These coalitions work to reduce sugary drink consumption and prevent the state from banning local public health laws. Sugar Free Kids Maryland will also support the Foundation’s diabetes prevention policy initiative.
People Acting Together for Howard (PATH): $50,000 to support its work in Foundation priority areas including equity, chronic disease and mental health.
The Community Ecology Institute, on behalf of B-FLY: $20,000 to build the organizing and advocacy capacity of the organization and partner with the Foundation on an important strategic policy issue, such as diabetes prevention, mental health and advancing racial equity.
Encouraging Healthy Aging
Accessible Resources for Independence, Chinese American Parent Association of Howard County, This Point Forward, Indian Cultural Association of Howard County, Korean American Senior Association and St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church: $5,000 each ($30,000 total) to study disparities in advance care planning and accessing hospice and palliative care services among communities of color, and make recommendations for interventions that may help residents access services and experience improved care.
Hospice and Palliative Care Network of Maryland: $25,000 to create a plan that would increase the use of hospice and palliative services by residents of color.
Howard County General Hospital: $200,000 to support the hospital’s patient care pavilion and physical plant renovation.
Ensuring a More Equitable Community
African American Community Roundtable: $56,500; Association of Community Services: $93,934; Equity4HC: $85,000; and Howard County Chinese School: $79,310 to continue to support and work on racial equity issues in Howard County.
Howard County Library System: $30,000 to host speaker series/community engagement panels on racial equity on the topics of health, education and housing.
Mental Health
A-OK Mentoring – Tutoring, Inc.; Center for Creative Life and Learning, Inc. – Girls on Fire Mentoring and Enrichment Program; Channing Memorial Church, Unitarian Universalist; Chinese American Parent Association of Howard County; Clarksville Middle School Parent Teacher Association; Coalition for Compassion; Equity4HC; First Presbyterian Church of Howard County; Girls on the Run of Central Maryland; Glen Mar Church; HC DrugFree; Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA; Howard County Autism Society; Howard County Conservancy; Islamic Leadership Institute of America; LeCheval Stable; Maryland Turkish American Inhabitants Inc.; Mediation and Conflict Resolution Center, Inc.; Oakland Mills Interfaith, Inc; PFLAG Howard County Columbia; Stevens Forest Elementary School PTA; The Columbia Orchestra of Howard County, Inc.; The Community Ecology Institute; The Village in Howard County; and Wilde Lake Interfaith Religious Center, Inc.: $56,255 total to help residents remain connected to one another and maintain a sense of community during this time of physical distancing and digital communication – and thus, help protect against the negative mental effects of our current environment.
Center for Creative Life and Learning, Inc. – Girls on Fire Mentoring and Enrichment Program; Chinese American Parent Association of Howard County; Dunloggin Middle School PTA; Every Kid Can Cook; HC DrugFree; HopeWorks of Howard County, Inc.; Howard County Chinese School; Humanim, Inc.; Marriotts Ridge High School PTSA; Maryland Turkish American Inhabitants Inc.; Mt. Hebron High School PTSA; National Family Resiliency Center; Oakland Mills High School PTSA; Patapsco Middle School PTA; Stillborn And Infant Loss Support-SAILS; Temple Isaiah Sisterhood; The Village in Howard County; Work Play Obsession All In Foundation: $1,250 each ($22,500 total) to help promote mental health awareness, reduce stigma around seeking help, share information about available resources and find ways to maintain social connections.
American Academy of Pediatrics Maryland Chapter: $80,000 to help embed behavioral health services into Howard County pediatric practices and make these services more accessible to patients and families.
Behavioral Health System Baltimore: $60,000 to help advance the Greater Baltimore Regional Integrated Crisis System (GBRICS) Regional Partnership, a new collaboration to expand and support behavioral health crisis response infrastructure and services.
Columbia Festival of the Arts: $20,000 to conduct its Mental Health Film Festival virtually, including the purchase of a secure platform for airing protected films.
Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center – $5,000 to offer free crisis, mental health and suicide prevention trainings to the community.
Howard County Public School System: $250,000 to expand availability of onsite 1:1 counseling services to additional schools and create a three school mental health wellness check-in pilot to assess the feasibility of adopting this program across the district.
Mental Health Association of Maryland – $15,000 to continue advocacy for Foundation mental health priorities in the Maryland General Assembly, including to ensure smart and equitable investments in behavioral health care, address racial inequities in the delivery of mental health and substance use treatment, expand access to services via telehealth and school-based behavioral health care and increase suicide and overdose prevention efforts.
Wendt Center for Loss and Healing: $8,500 to support and sustain targeted groups of professionals across Howard County as they navigate unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and uncertainty — among themselves and among the populations they serve.
Community Opportunity Grants
NAMI Howard County: $5,000 to hire a skilled facilitator and create new materials to help implement a new three-year strategic plan.
Community Action Council of Howard County: $20,000 to feed Head Start families during the program’s initial two-week closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Courageous Conversations about Race and Religion: $4,000 to help train 57 facilitators to lead a program that aims to help break down racial and religious barriers that keep us from listening and understanding one another.
Maryland Philanthropy Network: $10,000 to support member engagement in a new office location.
Coronavirus Response
Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health: $58,800 to include Howard County in a multi-site research study to better understand the barriers to vaccine acceptance.
HoCoRespond: $150,000 towards a joint total of $608,500 in a collaborative grantmaking effort with the Community Foundation of Howard County, United Way of Central Maryland and the Women’s Giving Circle of Howard County. Grants supported local organizations working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic to address food security, housing, childcare and health care needs. The full list of organizations who received awards through this joint effort can be found here.
Howard County General Hospital: $500,000 to keep front line health care workers safe, housed and fed as they fight the pandemic working over multiple shifts and to provide technology to support patients’ communication with loved ones who could not visit during the state of emergency.
Health Facilities Association of Maryland: $125,000 to provide personal protective equipment, food and temporary housing for front line health care workers at 25 assisted living, skilled nursing and other alternative living facilities in Howard County, and to provide technology so that patients can better engage with loved ones who could not visit during the state of emergency.
Humanim: $75,000 to support safe distancing for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities in residential programs, to provide personal protective equipment for staff and to provide food for front line health care workers through the City Seeds program
Chase Brexton Health Care: $50,000 to provide technology to support telecommuting and telehealth opportunities and to provide COVID-19 protective equipment and cleaning supplies at the county’s only federally qualified health care center
Gilchrist Hospice: $50,000 to provide COVID-19 protective equipment and cleaning supplies and to provide technology so that patients can better engage with loved ones who could not visit during the state of emergency.
Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center: $50,000 to provide temporary housing to homeless individuals and families to enable safe physical distancing and better protection from COVID-19 spread and to provide protective equipment and cleaning supplies for staff.
The Arc of Howard County: $50,000 to support safe distancing for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities in residential programs and to provide personal protective equipment for staff.
For more information about our grantmaking, visit thehorizonfoundation.org/grants.
