The Community Grants Fund is funded by a portion of the settlement between Pacific Gas & Electric Company and the City of San Bruno following a 2010 gas pipeline explosion that devastated San Bruno's Crestmoor neighborhood. This annual grant fund supports new and existing programs that benefit the San Bruno community. To fund the grants, the San Bruno Community Foundation combined $200,000 of its own funds with a $100,000 grant from YouTube and Google.org.
In this fourth year of the Community Grants Fund, the Board of Directors of the San Bruno Community Foundation approved grant awards totaling $300,000 to local community organizations for 29 programs, one of which was the San Bruno/South San Francisco 4-H Club.
Three 4-H club officers, President Tristan Davis, Vice President Alex Meyerhoff, and Treasurer Adam Zbriger, as well as club parents and volunteers, attended a Foundation meeting to thank them for their support. President Tristan Davis spoke to the board and expressed the gratitude of the entire club. “As president I am very thankful for the grant funding that will sustain the club's programs. After 12 years of membership I have learned countless life skills from participating in a variety of club projects. I am happy to know that younger members will also have this opportunity.”
The San Bruno/SSF 4-H Club was one of the recommended grantees selected from a competitive pool of 51 applications. The selection panel weighed the benefits of the proposed programs to the San Bruno community.
“We're so grateful to the Board for this award,” said Mimi Powers, co-community leader of the club. “It will be used to continue improving the San Bruno/SSF 4-H farm, give scholarships to youth to attend workshops and 4-H camp, enhance funding for projects, and, most importantly, keep 4-H affordable to families in our community.”
“It was very inspirational for us all to see the Board in action and witness how the city was able to turn such a catastrophic and sad event into something so positive for the community,” said 4-H volunteer Jane Stahl. “The list of recipients was amazing! Grants were awarded for cultural arts, exchange trips to Narita, Japan, scholarships for girls to attend a week-long STEM camp at Stanford, help for parents of special education children, relationship abuse, cyber bullying, combating homelessness, child development, mental health, and much, much more.”
For a complete list of recipients and more information on the San Bruno Community Foundation, go to https://www.sbcf.org/.