Short film-makers cash in on grant prizes | afr.com Judy Davis, centre, with short film winners Alex Ryan, Alex Murawski, Anya Beyersdorf and Brooke Goldfinch.

On Tuesday evening, four short film-makers were each awarded a $50,000 grant as winners of the global Lexus Short Film Fellowship, the largest cash prize for short film in Australia.

“Whilst film has always been a commercial industry, having Australian funding bodies in the past has allowed film-makers to be autonomous,” said Ms Goldfinch.

“These days artists are looking elsewhere for funding, but we need to maintain an equitable industry that allows us to hear from a more diverse body of film-makers.”

The entrants submitted a short film script to the panel and were shortlisted by The Weinstein Company. Over the next 12 months the fellowship will use the grant money to develop their stories and the four short films will debut at the 2017 Sydney Film Festival.

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A $990,000 grant to Kansas State University will create health care collaborations focused on decreasing the number of uninsured children in the state.

The grant, part of a $32 million national initiative by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will be used over two years in four southwest Kansas counties Ford, Feeney, Grant and Seward to create programs that enroll eligible children in KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, said Bradford B. One goal of the grant program will be putting people in touch with existing resources at state and federal levels that they may not know exist.

Kiss said the program will have a strong push to find eligible children as they return to school a natural point at which to reach them and during open enrollment periods for health insurance.

The grant will pay for a percentage of Kiss and Wiles’ time that will be devoted to its implementation and for hiring positions as needed. In fiscal year 2015, 327,223 children in Kansas were enrolled in either CHIP or Medicaid, CMS said.

“Following decades of progress and implementation, the rate of uninsurance for children has declined to the lowest levels on record,” said Vikki Wachino, director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services within CMS. “We know from the research that 91 percent of the children who are eligible for Medicaid and CHIP are now enrolled in those programs, an increase of 10 percentage points since 2008.”

In Kansas, the number of children enrolled in both CHIP and Medicaid increased 6.8 percent from FY 2014 to FY 2015, CMS numbers show.

Phillips 66 employee turns volunteer hours into grant funding | Plaquemines Gazette

CDT June 14, 2016

Community Foundation of the Ozarks(Photo: File Photo)

When the poverty rate in Lincoln, Neb.A surpassed 10 percent following the Great Recession, the Lincoln Community Foundation catalyzed Prosper Lincoln, a wide-ranging engagement process to hone in on shared goals to improve economic opportunity.

When leaders of a national corporation that had set up a large office in Dubuque, IowaA expressed concerns that racially diverse employees were not feeling welcome in the predominately Caucasian city, the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque developed a campaign to make inclusiveness a priority across the city.

When floodwaters swamped a large section of downtown Cedar Rapids, IowaA in 2008, Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation staff members had to quickly react to take what they could in an evacuation and set up shop elsewhere to process donations and grants for flood recovery.

Those are a few examples of public leadership, community response and disaster resiliency weave learned as members of the Philanthropic Preparedness, Resiliency and Emergency Partnership, a cohort of 17 Midwestern community foundations, including the Community Foundation of the Ozarks.

Hosted by The Fundersa Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, the PREP cohort just agraduateda in Fargo, N.D.A this monthA after two years of bi-annual site visits to member communities, supplemented by webinars and other training.

While no two community foundations function alike, we have a kinship based on our Midwestern geography, similarities in challengesA and propensity for natural disasters, ranging from the tornado alley members from Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska to the flood-prone river towns in Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota.

Stayner Collegiate students win grant for Collingwood women’s crisis shelter

The Owensboro Family YMCA is partnering with Estes Elementary School this summer to curb academic achievement gaps with literacy, enrichment and family engagement activities.

The program, dubbed Summer Learning Loss Prevention, was funded by a $13,500 YMCA of the USA start-up grant this year, and officials with the youth development organization visited the school on Owensboro’s east end earlier this week to track development and implementation.

The summer learning project, under way in about 120 communities nationwide, targets underserved and impoverished areas by fostering partnerships between Title I-funded schools and local YMCA chapters.

Kelly Wise is a technical adviser for YMCA of the USA. Orientations, a family night and surveys are just a few of the ways the program encourages outside involvement.

The grant funded one summer classroom fit for about 16 children, but the Owensboro Y started out serving 10 children who will be starting the third grade at Estes Elementary School in the fall.

Whitney Jewell is an Estes second- and third-grade teacher at Estes.

Many Estes Elementary School parents and guardians live in low-income housing, Jewell said.

NORWALK a Though the Norwalk Housing Authorityas preschools generally end on June 30, this year, they closed on Tuesday.

The two week shrink to the childrenas school year is due to the school districtas decision to not renew the housing authorityas school readiness grants, said Executive Director Curtis Law.

Director of Educational Programs Patricia Marsden-Kish and Law requested an interview with local media to set the record straight.

aI felt itas important that no one thinks, first of all, that the housing authority backed away from this,a said Law.

aWe didnat make this choice. aAnd I think itas important for the community to know that.a

Mary Oster, coordinator for the Early Childhood Council, who was involved with the decision to take away the Norwalk Housing Authorityas school readiness grant, did not respond for comment.

The School Readiness program, a state grant that provides preschool slots to children from low-income families, has been running at the Norwalk Housing Authority since 2014.

Marsden-Kish said they simply donat buy what the council said the housing authority did wrong, but even more so, they donat know why the news had to come without any warning.

aNowhere did I hear aWe have grave concerns about your management,aa Law said.

They said the notification of the councilas decision to not renew the housing authorityas school readiness slots came soon after their March budget meeting for the following year, during which no one indicated that the housing authorityas grant was in jeopardy.

aIt came as a surprise that they would all of a sudden decide that we could no longer do this,a Law said.

Because about 30 staff members are leaving Norwalk Housing Authority as a result of the school readiness loss, Law said their accountants informed them that they could not afford to run the preschool all the way through June like they usually did.

Law said the difference was about $30,000 a though athereas a couple things in dispute now and are not resolved.a

But the housing authority staff maintain a strong commitment to easing the transition for the families involved, Marsden-Kish said, in a way that is aleast disruptive.a

aWeave been crossing all the Tas and dotting all the Ias for the legality,a Law said.

They said theyave been giving the new providers, A Learning Odyssey Daycare and Growing Seeds Child Development Center, access to the 30 staff members who will be transitioning.

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“We look forward to deepening our relationship and accelerating how we bring impact [investment banking] to the mainstream.”

Philanthropy New Zealand has welcomed new figures from Statistics New Zealand which show the non-profit sector contributed $6 billion to GDP in 2013, together with another $3.4 billion in volunteer labour a total contribution of $9.4 billion, or 4.4%, to GDP.

The findings follow Philanthropy New Zealand’s recent report on charitable giving in New Zealand, Giving New Zealand: Philanthropic Funding 2014, which found New Zealanders gave a total of $2.788 billion to charities in 2013. Of that more than half $1.53 billion was from personal donations.

Philanthropy New Zealand chief executive Liz Gibbs says the Statistics NZ findings provide yet more proof that New Zealand is a very generous country.

“According to a report released by the UK-based Charities Aid Foundation earlier this year, charitable giving by individual New Zealanders is the second-highest in the world. These figures from Statistics New Zealand show New Zealanders don’t just donate money, they are also extremely generous with their time.”

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