Monday the 12 Statesman Season for Caring partner nonprofit agencies each received a $40,000 grant from the program. This is the second grant they have each received. In December, they each received a $10,000 grant.
A final grant will come in mid-February after Season for Caring ends its donation period on Jan. 31.
This year Season for Caring is having a record year. It has raised almost $117,000 in in-kind donations of goods and services and $1.36 million in monetary donations for a total of $1.47 million.
The grants received by the agencies will be used for helping the featured families that represent each agency first, but then be able to help hundreds of other families and individuals served by these local nonprofit organizations.
This week, Pat Munday made a $100,000 gift, doubling what she gave last year. Munday is the widow of Bill Munday, who owned car dealerships in Austin and Houston before his death in 2018. This year, she s been donating money to organizations like Season for Caring, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities and Hungry Souls, which are helping to keep families fed during the pandemic.
Since the program began in 1999, Season for Caring has given $15.1 million to local nonprofit organizations.
The agencies use the monetary donations to help the featured families first but then are able to help hundreds of other clients throughout the year with basic needs such as food, clothing, rent, medications and transportation.
Austin s Couch Potatoes fills refugee family s home with new furniture for Christmas
Deogratias Niyongabo, 38, his wife, Françoise Irankunda, 39, and their two daughters, Esther, 5, and Brianna, 3, are like many refugee families. Since arriving from Burundi in 2015, they have filled their home with whatever furniture anyone could give them.
They left the Casa Marianella shelter with a few pieces of furniture given to them by the shelter, then an immigration lawyer gave them a few more pieces, and Foundation Communities also found some pieces for them.
All of it was worn, sometimes stained or a little rough around the edges. Nothing went together: a round wood table, tall barstools, a broken dresser. They were grateful for all of it.
MollyBeth Malcolm, executive vice president for campus operations and public affairs at Austin Community College, said she reads the Statesman s Season for Caring program stories every year when they come out the Sunday after Thanksgiving. She keeps an eye on how ACC might be able to help.
This year, she honed in on two Season for Caring families and started working with them to help them realize their education goals, including how to find funding.
One of the people ACC is working with is 39-year-old LaChantia Anderson. She has been trying to get into computer coding since she was living in a motel in San Diego in 2016. Someone gave her a laptop, and she would sit in a coffee shop using the shop s WiFi to teach herself coding. Through years of being homeless on and off, she kept pursuing that dream.