Rochester Area Foundation wishes to congratulate the ten community nonprofit organizations that received Better Communities Grants this fall. Better Communities Grants are Rochester Area Foundation’s competitive grant awards, providing unrestricted funding for the core mission of critical community organizations. The purpose of these grants is twofold. First, we seek to empower nonprofits to expand, improve or pursue their best ideas, and second, to build the capacity and infrastructure of organizations poised for growth. This fall, Rochester Area Foundation awarded $110,000 in the impact areas of Basic Needs and Economic Mobility and Historically Marginalized Communities.
Read more about the organizations below, and consider joining us in supporting the work of these organizations.
Basic Needs + Economic Mobility Grantees
Apple Tree Dental
Apple Tree Dental’s mission is to overcome barriers to oral health. Their vision is to foster partnerships that create healthy communities.
Apple Tree Dental provide comprehensive dental services to vulnerable populations, including diagnostic consultations, and preventive, educational, and restorative services. This project will recruit, train, and retain the skilled dental team needed to expand and sustain Critical Access Dental services for underserved Southeastern Minnesotans.
Doc’s Recovery House
Doc’s Recovery House is a nonprofit Recovery Community Organization committed to providing essential services to individuals on their journey to recovery from Substance Use Disorder. Doc’s Recovery House is an organization intent on reigniting the light within each person by treating them with dignity and respect while walking alongside their path to recovery.
Doc’s Recovery House opened in 2019 with a 14-bed men’s housing program. Since 2019, they have grown significantly, with a current capacity to accommodate 64 residents in their housing programs, allowing them to support even more individuals on their journey to recovery. Between 2019 and 2023, they facilitated over 700 admissions into Doc’s Recovery House programs.
Family Promise Rochester
Family Promise Rochester’s mission is to help low-income families and families experiencing homelessness achieve sustainable independence through a community-based response.
Family Promise’s goal is to make a families’ time of homelessness as brief and stress free as possible. They acknowledge that each families’ experiences are different and need different approaches. Their family shelter and shelter diversion and prevention programs have met an increasing need in the community.
Legal Assistance of Olmsted County
Legal Assistance of Olmsted County (LAOC) improves legal outcomes and stability for families and individuals living in poverty. LAOC ensures access to justice by providing meaningful representation in civil matters to those in poverty.
LAOC aims to have a positive effect on our entire community by championing:
- Stability for families
- Accountability that leads to better housing
- Relief for victims of domestic violence
- Alleviation of overburdened Courts
Salvation Army – Rochester
The Salvation Army has been serving the people of Olmsted County since 1896. When we first came to this community, our programs included only a meal served, overnight shelter, and help for families during the holidays. Today, our programs are specific to healthcare, housing, and hope. Our services range from a health clinic for uninsured and under-insured persons in our community, to an apartment complex for individuals who have been chronically homeless, rapid rehousing, rent and utility assistance, a drop-in day center, daily served meals, a food shelf, youth programs, and more.
Society of St. Vincent de Paul – Rochester, MN
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul offers tangible assistance to those in need on a person-to-person basis. It is this personalized involvement that makes the work of the Society unique. This aid may take the form of intervention, consultation, or often through direct dollar or in-kind service. An essential precept of the Society’s work is to provide help while conscientiously maintaining the confidentiality and dignity of those who are served. The Society recognizes that it must assume, also, a role of advocacy for those who are defenseless or voiceless.
Historically Marginalized Communities Grantees
Ability Building Community
Since 1956 ABC has provided supports to a very diverse group of individuals with disabilities that all have varying support needs, goals and desires. We focus heavily on a person-centered approach to meet the needs of each individual person. ABC does this through 5 different programs that offer supports in employment, recreation and independent living. These supports allow individuals to have rights equal to those that anyone who does not need additional supports have in regards to the ability to live, work and participate in their communities.
Damascus Way Re-entry Center
Damascus Way Reentry Center’s mission is to provide trauma-informed services through the lens of reentry and recovery to help individuals transitioning from the correctional system, and multigenerational families who have been impacted, back into the community. By implementing a family systems model and multigenerational approach, we work closely with parents and youth to reduce multi generational cycles of incarceration within historically marginalized families.
Elder Network
Elder Network (EN) is a nonprofit human services provider for older adults and caregivers. EN started in 1988 in response to loneliness and isolation increasing suicide rates among older adults. We started working with a community of health providers, human service agencies, and other passionate community members, to establish a network of caring, trained volunteers to help provide visiting and coaching supports to these individuals who were facing lives they had not deemed worth living.
For older adults/caregivers of older adults that need help to thrive and lead rewarding lives, we provide assistance. We help connect them to others in the community to decrease loneliness and we connect them with services to maintain their housing, get counseling, manage money, access assistance programs, etc. We work with caregivers to help maintain their own health and the health of those for whom they care.
Village Agricultural Cooperative
The mission of the Village Agricultural Cooperative is to connect recent immigrant communities to land and water for food production, provide education and resources to support entrepreneurial development, and grow the farmers and food producers of tomorrow. We are a collaborative of people from all over the world who are building the economic power of historically marginalized communities through food justice initiatives that are sustainable to our planet. Through land access we increase their food security, grow culturally relevant crops and provide opportunities to start farming businesses. We also preserve cultural heritage, involve the elders in meaningful community integration, and introduce youth to international farming practices and produce.