Brainerd Lakes Area Community Foundation awards grants

The Brainerd Lakes Area Community Foundation awarded $15,400 to the following groups and organizations during the most recent of two annual grant rounds:

Sharing Bread Soup Kitchen, $1,000; Bethany Good Samaritan Village, $500; Bay Lake Lions Charities, $1,000 challenge grant; Kids Voting, $1,000; Nisswa Building Bridges Project, $1,500 challenge grant; Lakes Area Pregnancy Support Center, $2,400; Pine River-Backus Community Education newspaper project, $2,000; Committee For Life and Family, $2,000; Lakes Area Chaplaincy program, $2,000; Junior Achievement, $1,500 challenge grant; Crow Wing County community activities/St. Joseph's Medical Center anti-smoking curriculum, $1,000.

Eighteen grant applications were received and processed. The foundation provides an opportunity for people in Crow Wing County and southern Cass County to set up fund accounts that allow their communities to grow and improve through charitable giving. The foundation has been in the Brainerd lakes area since 1997 and has assets of more than $1.5 million.

The next round of grants will begin with applications to be accepted in January and awarded in September. Nonprofit groups that wish to apply for the available grant dollars should contact the Brainerd Lakes Area Community Foundation coordinator, Bonnie Cumberland, at 821-4819 or 829-6316.