By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org
For Wyoming’s Oriole Park Elementary, it was getting a set of recycling bins to help with its recycling effort. For the YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids , it was supporting its Y Achievers Program to bring it to the middle and high school students at Godwin Heights and Godfrey Lee schools.
Since 1992, this is the kind of support that the Wyoming Community Foundation has been providing to the City of Wyoming through its two grant programs.
“It kind of came about as a group of individuals who came together looking to do community stewardship,” said Greg King, who recently became the chair of the Wyoming Community Foundation. “That there were so many different needs going on in Wyoming, and how could this group help fund and support them going forward.”
The foundation is an affiliate of the Grand Rapids Foundation which King said the Grand Rapids Community Foundation handles most of the administration details for the Foundation. In fact, the Grand Rapids Community Foundation lists five community affiliate funds that include the communities of Ionia, Hudsonville-Jension, Lowell, Sparta, and Wyoming.
The Wyoming Community Foundation ten-member board, which makes decisions on who will receive grants, is made up of community and City of Wyoming business leaders such as Lillian Vanderveen, owner of Lenger Travel, and Chris Hall, former chair and Inner City Christian Federation community homes initiative manager.
The Wyoming Community Foundation awards two types of grants, general fund grants and Youth Advisory Committee grants. Currently, the Youth Advisory Committee program is on hiatus for a year as the group looks to revamp the program. King said the plan is to work with schools that have a footprint in the City of Wyoming to identify the issues the youth committee should focus on. Those schools are Wyoming Public Schools, Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, Godwin Heights Public Schools and Kelloggsville Public Schools,
“ [We are] looking at some of the priorities that have changed,” King said. “The priorities that the act [which created the Youth Advisory Committee] had were back from 2016. Things have changed in the past four years. We are looking at getting more input from the schools on what the giving priority should be for our youth.”
Through the foundation’s general fund, the Wyoming Community Foundation did award about $14,000 to six different organizations in 2019. All of the organizations had programs that would directly benefit the City of Wyoming residents, King said. Those groups included Affinity Mentoring, Feeding America Mobile Food Pantries, Junior Achievement, Senior Sing-Along, UCOM’s Eat Healthy, Be Healthy, and the YMCA’s Y Achievers.
Any 501c3 organization that works within the city may apply for a grant. The application process opens in July and ends the second Friday in September. Decisions are announced by Oct. 31. The Youth Advisory Committee grant process usually starts in February.
King said the Foundation can also serve as a springboard for organizations looking for other funding opportunities or residents looking for volunteer possibilities within the community. In fact, King said the Wyoming Community Foundation is currently looking to expand its board and interested residents can contact the Wyoming Community Foundation through its website, https://www.grfoundation.org/about/regional-affiliates/wyoming, or Facebook page.
