Operation Warm | Rainbow at Ridgeway

Winter officially started on December 21st. While you probably have a nice warm winter coat and boots, not everyone does. Enter Lindsey Butler, the Resident Services Coordinator for Rainbow Housing Assistance Corporation at Ridgeway Apartments on the west side of Chattanooga. She saw a need and had the right partners to make it happen. Our $2,485 grant purchased 62 coats and 53 pairs of shoes for children who reside in the Ridgeway community through Operation Warm. They partner with community organizations such as Rainbow to use this gift (the coats and shoes are a really good deal) as a catalyst for community connection.

But that’s not all Lindsey wanted to accomplish. After receiving the items, kids were asked to write a letter to a child at St. Jude's spending the holidays in the hospital. Paying it forward as they say. Nice job, Lindsey.

130 Art Kits for Kids | Mary Stargel and C-Grimey

Before COVID, 20-30 kids met every Wednesday at the Westside YFD Center for an Arts and Culture workshop led by C-Grimey. Students explored and expressed themselves through the medium of art and walked through this weekly journey with excitement and purpose. In an attempt to reconnect and inspire kids in the Westside neighborhood (and a few others), C-Grimey and Mary Stargel requested $3,000 to create 130 art kits that include things like a waterproof watercolor paint set, crayons, paper, and scissors all in a drawstring backpack.

Having these art kits will allow students to continue exploring what mediums they are interested in and expressing themselves through art. In late 2020, a small amount of funds were raised to hand out 30 art kits for the holidays. It was a great way to learn what was needed and how much it cost per kit. Now, with needs assessed and costs in line, our $3,000 will distribute 130 art kits to students at the Westside, Alton Park, and Wheeler House in the spring.

The Hughes Project | Net Resource Foundation

$1,400 is going to The Net Resource Foundation, thanks to Executive Director Raquetta Dotley. For what? Trees. In partnership with the Westside Community Baptist Church, The Hughes Project will beautify the area between 3996 Hughes Avenue (you picking up on why its called The Hughes Project?) and the Westside Community Garden located at 4023 Hughes Avenue. This beautification aims to cool the area from the Urban Heat Island Effect with cooling from strategically placed trees, provide recreational green space, and an open food source with the community garden.

In a partnership with the city, we’ll be buying 20 bare root Apple Serviceberry and American Redbud trees and getting most of them planted. We’re looking forward to having an ice cold lemonade with under one of them real soon.

SPLASH Winter Workshop

Charlie Newton, Executive Director of SPLASH Youth Arts Workshop, will be putting our November grant to work over the winter school break by providing free art classes to kids in the College Hill Courts area. Charlie, who grew up on the Westside and later went on to cultivate a successful career as an artist, has responded to the void in arts education for many local school children. He sees the 8 hours he and his staff will spend teaching each of this session's 40 students  as an opportunity to pull them away from the negative influence of gangs and crime and to foster new creative and personal skills that go beyond their time with SPLASH. In learning to draw the human figure, for instance, Charlie estimates his students will hone knowledge in topics such as anatomy and art history to focus, critique, self-awareness, and confidence. It's big picture work boiled down and concentrated into small but powerful interactions. 

Westside Community Garden January 2012

Recipient: Tonya Rooks

Our first grant was to Tonya Rooks with the College Hill Courts Residency Council, headed by Tonya Rooks.  The UNfoundation granted towards the implementation of a community garden that now belongs to the West Side residents. The graden was created to meet the need created by the ever increasing ‘food desert’ scenario in the Westside. Raised beds were built to grow fresh produce to be consumed by the residents of the neighborhood.  As a first project, we were really thrilled, and this quality set the tone for what was to come from The UnFoundation.