The Safe Place and Rape Crisis Center (SPARCC) recently received a $5,000 grant from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation to help fund SPARCC’s shelter program. SPARCC serves survivors of domestic and sexual violence in Sarasota and DeSoto Counties. Last year, SPARCC provided 7,252 nights of shelter to 182 adults and 96 children. In addition to providing shelter, participants receive comprehensive services to help heal and equip them for a new beginning.

New College of Florida was recently awarded a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in support of New College’s initiative “New College: Connecting the Arts and Humanities on Florida’s Creative Coast.” The project has three central goals: to elevate New College’s capacity to contribute to public discourse on the humanities and arts, to build sustainable relationships with local arts organizations and to establish sustainable academic connections with other local colleges.

To strengthen national early literacy efforts, The Patterson Foundation is contributing $250,000 to the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a national movement to increase reading proficiency among children in low-income families. The contribution will benefit a national network of more than 285 communities working to move the needle on grade-level reading.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services recently selected The Ringling as a recipient of its Museums for America grant program. The museum will receive $120,650. The grant will be used to renovate onsite storage space, allowing the entirety of the paintings collection to be housed on museum property.

Children First recently received a $15,000 grant from the Jerome and Mildred Paddock Foundation to assist low-income families with tuition for the 2016-2017 school year. This grant will allow the local Head Start provider to extend services to more area preschool-age children and their families in need.

PGT Industries recently made its annual $5,000 contribution to the Child Protection Center. Employees at PGT have also collected clothing for the center to provide to young clients, as well as to any family in need of children’s clothing throughout the community.

The Child Protection Center was also recently awarded a $5,000 Roberta Leventhal Sudakoff Grant benefitting the center's Personal Safety Community Awareness Program. Program staff provides child abuse prevention workshops to children of all ages, parents, caregivers and professionals throughout Sarasota County.

In addition, the Child Protection Center was awarded a $10,000 grant from the Wilson-Wood Foundation benefitting its Sexual Abuse Treatment Program. With the grant, the program will be able to provide 139 therapy hours, including individual, family, group and case management services for a period of one year.

Goodwill Manasota and the Women’s Resource Center of Manatee and Sarasota are together launching the BRAVE (Benefits, Resources and Veterans Education) Networking Program, with the goal of making mental health care available for all local veterans at no cost. Beginning on Wednesday, Oct. 12, and continuing every Wednesday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Goodwill Veterans Resource Center, 8490 Lockwood Ridge Road, Sarasota, veterans are invited to network with other veterans and counselors from the Women’s Resource Center and Goodwill’s Veterans Services Program team.