Berks County Community Foundation awarded more than $100,000 to seven organizations in the Boyertown area in October, including $66,000 from the Boyertown Area Charitable Program.
The Boyertown Area Charitable Program provides grants to organizations, programs, or initiatives that improve the quality of life for residents of the Boyertown Area School District.
The program’s Advisory Committee recently held its annual meeting and after careful consideration awarded the following grants from the Community Foundation’s Boyertown Area Community Fund and the Boyer Foundation Fund:
- $15,000 to Building A Better Boyertown to support a grant-writing position. Building A Better Boyertown is a nonprofit Main Street program that works to improve the community. An additional $30,000 grant, payable over two years, was awarded from the Marlene L. Driscoll Fund of Berks County Community Foundation to support the position.
- $15,000 to the Boyertown Midget Baseball League to renovate Mackey Field at Boyertown Community Park. Renovations will include covered dugouts, expanded bullpens, expansion of the in-play area behind home plate, conversion to a grass infield, the addition of ADA-compliant restrooms, seating behind home plate, and more. An additional grant of $10,120 was awarded to this project from the Marlene L. Driscoll Fund.
- $10,000 to the Boyertown Community Ambulance Service to replace a cardiac monitor/defibrillator.
- $10,000 to the General Carl Spaatz National USAAF Museum for a B-17 Flight Simulator Room, which will have attendees act as one of a six-person crew on a bombing mission in a mock-up of a B-17 bomber.
- $7,500 to the Gilbertsville Fire and Rescue Company to install an emergency vehicle exhaust extraction system in the company’s station.
- $3,500 to Studio B for “Transforming Moments: Finding My Voice,” Studio B’s annual fine art exhibit and book release.
- $3,250 to the Jewish Federation of Reading/Berks to bring “Violins of Hope” to more than 1,500 students in the two middle schools of the Boyertown Area School District. Violins of Hope is a collection of instruments recovered from the Holocaust and restored to provide education about the negatives of antisemitism, racism, and other divisions in our local community, and to turn the focus to unity and understanding. The two-hour assemblies will be followed by related in-class instruction.
