November 2006

Women Making a Difference Surpasses $200,000
Giving Mark; Grants Celebration Attracts Hundreds

Several hundred people cheered as Women Making a Difference awarded $53,000 to 15 local charities at a party held at Lowndes Grove Plantation on Wednesday, November 15. Since 2002, Women Making a Difference has generated over $200,000 to fund grants that seek to enhance the quality of life for women and children in the Lowcountry. Women Making a Difference is a giving circle, a group of savvy women who band together to increase their giving power, and membership is open to all women.

The 2006 grant recipients include:

Carolina Youth Development Center
The Women Making a Difference grant will fund a two month art therapy program for up to 10 children at CYDC's Charleston Emergency Shelter. Art therapy is a proven clinical intervention for communication, healing, and growth; the benefits of art therapy are significant in the trauma assessment and treatment process.

Center for Women
The Women Making a Difference grant will allow the Center for Women to add a second counselor to its staff. This will enable the Center to provide 20 additional hours of counseling each month and in turn, 175 women (an additional 75) will receive therapy annually.

Charleston Area Therapeutic Riding
The Women Making a Difference grant will sponsor 20 sessions of therapeutic riding lessons for five children ages 4 to 18 who, without full scholarships, would not be able to participate. This gives children with disabilities from low-income families and diverse backgrounds the ability to take part in this worthwhile therapeutic program.

Charleston Breast Center
The Women Making a Difference grant will support the South Carolina Mammography Access Initiative, which delivers breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and support services for women facing socioeconomic disadvantages. The program includes up to 25 subsidized screenings, diagnostics, and referrals for underserved area women.

Charleston Miracle League
The Women Making a Difference grant will fund the third phase in the development of the League's field, which includes handicap-accessible restrooms, drinking fountains, and a picnic pavilion. This is an organized baseball league for over 100 area children with physical and mental disabilities.

Communities in Schools of the Charleston Area, Inc.
The Women Making a Difference grant will support the SiHLE (Zulu word meaning "beautiful girl") program, an educational intervention program is designed to teach condom use to 30 sexually active, adolescent, African-American girls who are at high risk for sexually-transmitted infections and diseases.

Dee Norton Lowcountry Children's Center
The Women Making a Difference grant will help underwrite an art therapy program that provides individual, family, and group treatment. Test results have shown that those who participate in the art therapy program have significantly decreased anxiety and post-traumatic stress. The grant will enable the Center to serve a minimum of 50 clients.

Family Services, Inc.
The Women Making a Difference grant will fund the expansion of the Family Violence Intervention Program to include individual counseling for 20 battered women and children, in addition to the group counseling presently offered. Participants will receive an average of five individual sessions with a licensed counselor.

MUSC College of Nursing
The Women Making a Difference grant will provide basic health education and literacy education twice a week to 10 to 12 Hispanic, immigrant women with 2 and 3 year-olds in the Midland Park area of North Charleston. The program's use of group activities will allow the often isolated women to meet one another and build a support system. This is a collaboration with the Charleston County School District, the Trident Literacy Association, the Midland Park Community Ministries, and the College of Nursing.

My Sister's House
The Women Making a Difference grant will fund general operating support, such as insurance, telephone, and transportation, for this non profit that serves victims of domestic violence. The nature of the organization's 24-hour daily free services causes its expenses to be high and very few funding sources will fund operating costs, thus WMD has filled the need.

People Against Rape
The Women Making a Difference grant will fund and support the organization's victim advocacy services, such as travel, telephone, support group supplies, postage, supplies for four annual volunteer training sessions, and clothing to replace articles taken for evidence.

Sea Island Habitat for Humanity
The Women Making a Difference grant will buy construction materials and/or land for the 2007 Women Build program. This annual project is completed by women volunteers and will produce a house for a single mother and her children.

St. Matthew's Community Outreach
The Women Making a Difference grant will fund a series of basic life skills training courses in five areas of study including: critical thinking, financial management, health and nutrition, family strengthening, and ability to gather information using modern resources. The multidimensional As Kids/As Families program involves empowering families to work together to achieve a common goal of a better life.

Trident Technical College's "Clemente Project"
The Women Making a Difference grant will purchase textbooks and materials of 40 disadvantaged women of the Tricounty, who are enrolled in tuition-free humanities college courses designed to fight poverty through intellectual freedom. The funds will also be used to advertise the program to low-income women in the area.

WINGS for Kids
The Women Making a Difference grant will help underwrite the four program components of WINGS' Parent Program at Memminger School: to help parents feel more connected to the school, be more involved in their children's education, have more effective social and emotional skills, and develop relationships with other Memminger parents, thereby creating a network for themselves.

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For additional information, please email Ida Becker.