July 2026 Grant Winner

El Arte de Nutrirse: Mindful Nourishment for Body, Heart & Spirit

Congrats to The Sattva Project on winning their second UNFoundation grant!

They're teaming up with La Paz Chattanooga on El Arte de Nutrirse, a six-week wellness series for 15-20 Latina women in our community.

The Sattva Project is a Chattanooga nonprofit that brings trauma-informed yoga, mindfulness, and resilience-building to folks navigating stress and hard seasons of life. This time, they're pairing that work with cultural cooking demonstrations, nutrition education, and fresh produce from local farms, all built for women juggling caregiving, work, and a whole lot of stress with very little time left over for themselves.

Six two-hour sessions will mix trauma-informed yoga, guided meditation, breathwork, and grounding movement with hands-on cooking and shared meals, held at the J.A. Henry Community YMCA and La Paz Chattanooga's kitchen. Local chefs, cultural cooks, and wellness practitioners are all pitching in.

Our $3,000 grant covers facilitator pay, groceries, bilingual handouts, and on-site translation, because good work deserves fair pay and full access. Sessions kick off in late September 2026.

The cohort is small, but the ripple isn't.

August 2024 Grant Winner

Get ready for a cultural feast! We are pumped to support Semillas TN's 5th Annual Dia de Muertos Community Ofrenda. This incredible event celebrates the rich traditions of Latinx culture and honors loved ones who have passed.

With our $1,900 grant, Semillas TN will be able to elevate its Ofrenda to new heights. Imagine educational workshops, a "U-pick" cempasúchil, commonly known as Mexican marigolds, flower day, and a captivating Catrina parade. The stunning Ofrenda centerpiece will be adorned with vibrant decorations, fragrant flowers, and delicious food.

Semillas TN is creating a space for connection, reflection, and joy by bringing the community together. This event honors tradition and fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation of Latinx culture. We're excited to see how this year's Ofrenda will inspire and uplift the Chattanooga community.

El Pueblo Fund | CALEB + Tennessee United

If you haven’t yet learned who CALEB is, let us blow your mind. CALEB is an institutional coalition of faith-based, labor, and community groups working to build power to affect change right here in Chattanooga, TN. They do that through a number of ways outlined on their website including, a Community Bail Fund, a network of volunteers to attend Eviction Court and document those who might need assistance, an Immigration Bond Fund, and through a partnership with Tennessee United, the new El Pueblo Fund.

The Latinx community is 5.9% of the population of Hamilton County, but by June 24th represented 61% of COVID cases and 34% of COVID-related deaths.  With rising numbers of infection, El Pueblo Fund offers necessary support to help the Latinx community directly with monetary support.

Disbursement of funds is happening immediately. The fund will allow families to shelter in place at home or a hotel (depending how many people are covid19 positive per household). Knowing their bills and basic needs will be covered, will allow them to quarantine safely. The fund will cover rent and bills, basic needs such as diapers, formula, medicine and personal hygiene products. Having that peace of mind during quarantine is also needed for sound mental health. We all need that.

La Sala Digital | La Paz Chattanooga

La Paz Chattanooga is the leading Latinx and Hispanic community organization in Southeast Tennessee. Their mission is to empower and engage Chattanooga’s Latinx population through advocacy and education. They do this by connecting community members to resources that help them thrive, gain skills and become engaged in our community. Over the past two years, La Paz has expanded its classes and programs to include digital access and equity. Connecting low-income parents to digital tools ensures equal access to learning opportunities for their family. Barriers facing Latinx families extend into the realm of digital literacy. We can close the digital literacy gap and help individuals overcome barriers by providing Chattanooga's Latinx community with a mobile computer lab named La Sala Digital (The Digital Room).

La Sala Digital will have 20 Chrome books, thanks to a partnership with Tech Goes Home, the Enterprise Center’s digital inclusion program, complete with a charging station, projector and screen. The first project using the new equipment (plus an instructor of course) is a Citizenship Interview Preparation course in partnership with Tennessee Immigrant Empowerment Solutions. This is a 30 hour naturalization course that will be offered over 15 weeks and will help permanent residents prepare for their naturalization test. The second is the Plaza Comunitaria (Community Plaza) — a program in partnership with the Mexican Consulate in Atlanta. It will help United States based Latinx’s learn to read and write in Spanish and finish elementary and intermediate level education.

YMCA | Bi-lingual Books

This month, we are also proud to support the the Early Learning Readiness program for the J.A. Henry YMCA. This is a FREE nation-wide YMCA program designed for children birth to 5 years old. They use a curriculum of 13 interest centers that children experience 2 days a week with their caregiver (babysitter, grandma, parent). Our preschool program focuses on developmental milestones and Kindergarten-readiness skills. We have 1 class that meets in East Lake and another that meets in East Ridge; last year we had a total of 66 program participants and 62% of those children & parents are primarily Spanish-speaking families. However they have very few that are sturdy board books and only 11 are bi-lingual. We offer books for families to borrow between classes, and the books in Spanish are always the first selected. Our UNFoundation grant will triple the number of bi-lingual books available to families so that they have the opportunity to read bedtime stories to their children in their own language, while also practicing English.