Soil Resources | NEEMA Community Garden

We have a saint among us. Her name is Charlene Nash. Read about her work helping farmers in Africa here. After a recent trip to Madagascar, Charlene will be assisting Father Peter Kanyi build out the community garden of NEEMA, the Kiswahili name for grace. NEEMA promotes self-sufficiency for refugee and immigrant individuals and families by providing advocacy, support and education in the Chattanooga area. The community garden on Main St is in need of building materials to make it more productive and a more comfortable gathering place, while still remaining mobile if it needed to move, for the immigrant farmers growing foods familiar to them in their home country.

This $3,000 grant benefits all refugees who garden at NEEMA as well as those in the neighborhood with beds of their own. With all the services NEEMA provides (culture counseling, housing, medical care, pastoral care, transportation, translation, ESL classes, etc), the garden just adds another human, friendly dimension to an already confusing transition for many refugees/immigrants. Growing familiar foods as well as the non judgmental, social interaction in a garden cannot be reproduced anywhere else. Making sure these people who are new to our area can make a successful transition and become contributing members of the community will benefit Chattanooga as a whole.

Ivy Academy | New Library

Ivy Academy continues to expand their programs, and this year they have taken a massive step to add a high school!  This month we heard from a 14 year old student and future Eagle Scout of Ivy Academy who upon viewing the blueprints for the school noticed a room connected to the offices that was labeled “Library”.  When he asked about it, he learned that with the costs of the new building, no money was left in the budget to actually equip the library. This student is taking matters into his own hands, and for his Eagle Scout Project is organizing a book drive to fill the new library with over 1,000 donated books.  They will need a new computer and scanner to manage the check out process, and that’s where we are excited to step in.

YMCA | Bi-lingual Books

This month, we are also proud to support the the Early Learning Readiness program for the J.A. Henry YMCA. This is a FREE nation-wide YMCA program designed for children birth to 5 years old. They use a curriculum of 13 interest centers that children experience 2 days a week with their caregiver (babysitter, grandma, parent). Our preschool program focuses on developmental milestones and Kindergarten-readiness skills. We have 1 class that meets in East Lake and another that meets in East Ridge; last year we had a total of 66 program participants and 62% of those children & parents are primarily Spanish-speaking families. However they have very few that are sturdy board books and only 11 are bi-lingual. We offer books for families to borrow between classes, and the books in Spanish are always the first selected. Our UNFoundation grant will triple the number of bi-lingual books available to families so that they have the opportunity to read bedtime stories to their children in their own language, while also practicing English.

GreenSpaces | Green Prix

Ladies and gentlemen, start your (quiet, efficiently built electric) engines!

The UNFoundation is proud to partner with GreenSpaces to support Green Prix, a successful collaboration with eight local schools that began in 2017 and had teams of students building and racing electric karts.  The emphasis was on developing STEM skills and on the participants learning team building, electrical and wiring, alignment, and aerodynamics. Students at each school received a base Greenpower USA kit car with a chassis, wheels, motor and batteries with instructions to assemble the kits and then create a shell of the car using as many recycled materials as possible. We are excited that they are expanding to connect with 20 schools in the 2018-2019 school year and impacting more students in Hamilton County! Click here to watch the youtube video.

Facility Dog | Children's Advocacy Center

The Children's Advocacy Center of Hamilton County (CAC) has a mission to serve those affected by alleged child sexual abuse. [These people have truly noble jobs] The CAC provides intervention, therapeutic, and prevention services to victims of abuse. All services are offered at no charge to clients. Soon they will brighten those services with a trained facility dog from the nonprofit Canine Companions for Independence. #woof

Trained dogs can be utilized in counseling in two main ways. First, by simply being present within the therapy room, but not the main focus. In this method, the dog helps calm the child just by being there. The second way that dogs can be utilized in the counseling environment is to make the dog a part of the therapy itself. An apprehensive child could pet the dog while talking about highly emotional issues.

It may be hard to believe, but the CAC served almost 600 children last year. It takes a community working together to move the needle and create real change. This facility dog will do just that.

HIV and Hungry | Choice Health Network

Everyone needs to eat. Enter Kelly Smith, a Medical Case Manager at Choice Health Network, located on McCallie Ave in Downtown Chattanooga.  She is charged with identifying HIV+ individuals in the community and assisting them (based on income eligibility) with the things most of us take for granted. When one of her newest clients revealed he ate a tablespoon of beans for breakfast that morning because he had to make sure his ration of a can of beans lasted him for the whole day Kelly upped her social work game. While she often buys clients dinner with funds out of her own pocket, she's a single mother and her funds are limited. Choice Health Network recently had to reduce their nutrition programming and had many clients struggling as a result.

Chattanooga may not realize it, but there many amongst us who live with HIV. Some are gay, some are straight, some are black, some are white, but all are human. While the virus is not as deadly as it used to be, thanks to outstanding leaps and bounds in medical advances, it can take its toll on an individual's ability to work a steady, full-time job. For those who are older, it is nearly impossible. Chattanooga is already so awesome, but we oftentimes easily forget about the homeless and the hungry while we go rock climbing, kayaking with the kids, enjoying an outdoor market or attend one of the many amazing eateries available to us in the city. After this somber reminder by Kelly, we awarded a full $3,000 grant, and have quadrupled their nutrition funds through next Spring.

Land and Sea | Stove Works

Stove Works, in collaboration with Daniel Fuller, Curator of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, introduces the exhibition, LAND AND SEA. Through sculpture, video, painting, and sound, LAND AND SEA explores how water, air, and soil, those specifically of Chattanooga and East Tennessee, are altered, inhabited, mythologized, reduced, abused, explored, and celebrated. LAND AND SEA will comprise five separate exhibitions. The series will take place within proximity to the Stove Works site, along Main Street. Each show will be complemented by programming carefully designed to draw out different aspects of each show, extending meaning and relationships not only into other realms of art but also out of the gallery and into the world.

From opening night, August 10th, through closing September 9th you can view all the events here. Everything from a foraging walk with Lauren Hays of Wooden Spoon Herbs to a film screening of Two Went In, 2018 by Erica Scoggins will peak your interest and fulfill your arts desires. Our $2,000 helps Stove Works forge the way into an exciting future for the arts in CHA.

Rivermont Elementary Outdoor Classroom | Eagle Scout Project

J.Y. is 15 years old. He's a sophomore at McCallie School and a member of local Boy Scout Troop 223. To complete his Eagle Scout Rank he's working with Principal Nikki Bailey to design and create an outdoor classroom at Rivermont Elementary School. Our $1,000 May grant coupled with most of J.Y.'s summer break equals completion.

Why? Eagle Scout candidates complete a project to demonstrate leadership of others while executing a project to benefit their community. With the help of volunteers from his troop, the school, the adjacent neighborhoods, as well as friends and family- the classroom includes picnic table seating for 24 students, smaller "stump like" stools, a lectern for teacher, as well as birdhouses placed appropriately in the area surrounding the classroom. And a partridge in a pear tree. Whoa.