Current Grantees

Summary of 2023 Qlarant Foundation Grant Awards

New Grantees

Ardmore Enterprises — Award Amount: $20,000

Empowering People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Ardmore’s Community Engagement Fund addresses the social determinants of health that cause barriers to community access and inclusion, reducing social isolation in persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The Qlarant Foundation grant provides a stipend for individuals in the program to navigate their community, work with support staff to identify community assets, and engage in a variety of activities. It provides for software to build and share a community-wide asset map for the Ardmore community—including partner organizations—to facilitate wider community integration and engagement.

Building African American Minds (BAAM) — Award Amount: $20,000

Building Responsible and Productive Citizens

Qlarant funding supports Your Wellness Matters!—a physical and mental health support program for youth, adults, and families from people who are more likely to be at-risk for factors associated with poor health. This population is mainly associated with people of color and those experiencing poverty and the effects it has on physical health and social-emotional wellness.

Chesapeake Multicultural Resource Center — Award Amount: $30,000

Clearing the Way for Non-English Speaker Health Navigation

Qlarant Foundation’s funding provides free, quality, health navigation and wrap-around services to the non-English speaking community in the Mid-Shore region. These include application counseling for Medicaid and Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, assistance applying for relief or setting up payment plans for medical bills, connecting to primary care providers and specialist referrals, and sight translations of notices from physicians or medical organizations. Wrap-around services include application counseling for SNAP benefits, direct immigration services and representation before USCIS, interpreting services in Spanish and Haitian Creole, school enrollment, employment, and housing applications.

Christmas in April Calvert County — Award Amount: $3,500

Ensuring a Warm, Safe, and Independent Place to Live

Christmas in April Calvert County—in partnership with the community—repairs and improves houses and other physical structures to ensure low-income homeowners in Calvert County and their families live in warmth, safety and independence. Qlarant Foundation funds directly support supplies and resources necessary for repairs and improvements.

Lori’s Hands — Award Amount: $25,000

Engaging College Students to Improve the Lives of Adults with Chronic Illness

Lori’s Hands harnesses the energy of college students to address unmet needs among aging Baltimoreans with chronic illness. During weekly visits, trained student volunteers provide clients with much-needed companionship and assist with essential tasks such as grocery shopping, completing household chores, and navigating community resources, among other instrumental activities of daily living. Funding from Qlarant Foundation supports the programmatic costs needed to expand our impact among those most in need of assistance as they age in place in Baltimore.

Meals on Wheels Takoma Park/Silver Spring — Award Amount: $15,000

Providing Meals to Neighbors in Need

With a vision of a more resilient, compassionate, and interconnected community, Meals on Wheels Takoma Park/Silver Spring delivers healthy, delicious meals to their homebound neighbors. The Qlarant Foundation grant will fund the Stopping Hunger at the Door: Feeding Homebound Seniors in Maryland program. The program provides sustenance to the people who are the most vulnerable–neighbors who are ill and elders living in isolation, many with underlying health conditions.

My Sister’s Place — Award Amount: $15,000

Addressing Access to Healthcare for Survivors

My Sister’s Place shelters, supports, and empowers survivors of domestic violence and their children. The Fresh Start Fund was created in 2020 to provide one-time financial support to help ensure survivors were not at risk of reversing the gains they made because of a financial obstacle. The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected these people. Simultaneously, inflation has also made it very hard for them to survive, as has increasing rent in the District. For many survivors, a financial setback is often the reason they may consider returning to an abuser. The Fresh Start Fund steps in so they do not have to go back into a dangerous situation.

Promise Landing Farm — Award Amount: $10,000

Fostering Inclusiveness Through Riding Lessons

Promise Landing Farm (PLF) is a creative engine for inclusivity, engaging community members—with and without disabilities—in meaningful interactions with each other and their equine partners to foster a community where everyone is valued and included. Inclusive riding lessons at PLF take a holistic, ability-centered approach. Participants are involved in all aspects of horse care before and after they ride, with a focus on responsibility, relationship, and empathy with the horse.

Rebuilding Together, Queen Anne’s County — Award Amount: $10,000

Ensuring Safe and Healthy Homes

Rebuilding Together of Queen Anne’s County, Inc. exists and functions to ensure elderly, disabled and low-income Queen Anne’s County residents (including veterans) live in safe and healthy homes. The Safe and Healthy Homes program provides home modifications and repairs enabling eligible homeowners to remain in their homes—enhancing the quality of their lives.

Resilience Across Borders — Award Amount: $35,000

Reducing Mental Health Inequities in Children of Color

The Resilience Builder Program aims to reduce mental health inequities in children of color from economically marginalized communities by expanding access using a school-based intervention. Improving resilience-based skills in youth is effective because it predicts a number of long-term positive outcomes, including positive mood, self-regulation, social competence, academic achievement, and even physical health outcomes. The program produces significant improvement in academic motivation, classroom engagement, study skills, interpersonal skills, and emotional self-regulation.

Previously Funded Grantees

Bay Hundred Community Volunteers — Award Amount: $15,000

Building Ramps for Better Access

The efforts of the Bay Hundred Community Volunteers reach all of the communities in Talbot County. The Qlarant Foundation grant allows the organization to continue installing modular ramps which help reduce isolation and assist clients to get to their medical appointments. In addition to the Modular Ramp Program, the grant supports the General Home Repair Program. Fifteen to twenty projects are completed each year, ranging from installing a grab bar to building a new set of front steps or repairing a bathroom floor.

Bringing Hope Home — Award Amount: $25,000

Increasing Access for Families of Cancer Patients

Bringing Hope Home (BHH) is a non-profit organization that provides Unexpected AmazingnessÂŽ to local families with cancer through financial and emotional support. Through the Light of Hope Family Program, BHH offers one-time financial assistance to pay essential household bills for families with cancer. Qlarant Foundation funding provides 30 families with one-time assistance to pay rent or mortgage, utilities, food, and transportation costs.

Camp Attaway — Award Amount: $30,000

Nurturing the Mind, Body, and Spirit

Camp Attaway nurtures the mind, body, and spirit of children who are at risk because of an inability to manage their emotions and behaviors and provides education and mental health support to family members. The Qlarant Foundation, grant supports the therapeutic summer program serving 28-30 children with complex special needs, education and support for family members, and specialized training of special educators and mental health service providers.

For All Seasons, Inc. — Award Amount: $25,000

Mental Health Access for All

Mental Health Access for All funds mental health visits for uninsured and underinsured Individuals—including men, women, children, and families. This program serves working families, many with employer-sponsored health insurance, who cannot afford their co-payments for mental health care. Qlarant Foundation funding provides financial access for behavioral health services.

Grassroots Health — Award Amount: $25,000

Using Sports to Advance Health Equity

Grassroots Health advances health equity in cities by using sports to reimagine health education in middle schools and mobilizing NCAA athletes as health educators and role models for underserved teens. Qlarant Foundation enables Grassroots Health’s in-school nutritional, sexual, and mental health education program for 1,500 youth in 13 DC high-need middle schools. The program promotes health equity in the community and addresses overall health literacy through a health education model. The program promotes a healthy and thriving community for all residents regardless of where they live.

Help and Outreach Point of Entry, Inc. — Award Amount: $15,000

Increasing Accessibility to Dental Care

The Adult Dental Outreach initiative enhances the Lower Eastern Shore’s ability to provide dental care to its poor and homeless residents—improving the health of individuals and communities. By increasing physical accessibility to care and working creatively with local providers, the agency is able to reduce ineffective and costly hospital emergency visits and positively impact the lives of those suffering from dental disease. Qlarant Foundation funds provide coverage for over fifty individuals.

Reach Out and Read Washington, DC — Award Amount: $25,000

Fostering Development Through Reading

Reach Out and Read (ROR) is an evidence-based intervention designed to foster early brain development in children, intentional skill-building in parents, resilience in families, and positive bonding between children and families. The ROR intervention lives at the intersection of health and literacy. Trained medical providers use a valuable tool—books and anticipatory guidance—to talk to parents and other caregivers about what’s happening in their life; challenges and opportunities, and the benefits of reading aloud to their young children.

Rebuilding Together, Kent County — Award Amount: $10,000

Repairing Homes, Revitalizing Communities, Rebuilding Lives.

Rebuilding Together Kent County leverages gifts of time, money, skill, and labor to repair and rehabilitate homes for income-eligible seniors, veterans, those living with disabilities, individuals, and families with children in Kent County. Qlarant Foundation funding supports the Our Safe & Healthy Homes Program—helping older residents who want to age-in-place safely, rather than moving to a facility away from their social support network.

St. Michaels Community Center — Award Amount: $10,000

Serving, Empowering, and Connecting

The Healthy Living Program provides evidence-based, health education self-management classes covering chronic disease, diabetes, tobacco cessation, and healthy cooking. These classes strengthen underserved populations and improve health resiliency and outcomes. By providing these classes to the underserved population in the Bay Hundred and throughout Talbot County, St. Michaels Community Center hopes to ultimately improve health outcomes such as obesity and diabetes.

Talbot County Empty Bowls — Award Amount: $3,500

Striving to Eliminate Hunger

Talbot County Empty Bowls is an independent, volunteer organization that strives to eliminate hunger insecurity “one bowl at a time” and raise awareness of this serious issue. During their annual event, 375 people purchase a $20 ticket and receive soup, bread, and a cookie. They take the “empty bowl” home to remind them “of those for whom the next meal is not a given.” The bowls are donated by painters and high school students. Leftover bowls are sold at the Easton Farmers’ Market to raise funds and awareness. All proceeds are donated to food pantries supported by ten Talbot County organizations. Qlarant Foundation’s gift goes to general program support.

There Goes My Hero — Award Amount: $20,000

Helping Those Impacted by Blood Cancer

There Goes My Hero is a community-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to help those impacted by blood cancer. The organization supports those impacted by blood cancer by registering people on the bone marrow registry and by providing various patient services. Qlarant Foundation funding supports the Volunteer Program which is essential to managing the registration process.

University of Maryland Medical System Foundation Breathmobile — Award Amount: $25,000

Bringing the Breathmobile to Baltimore

The Breathmobile program provides free preventive specialty care to high-risk underserved children with asthma that result in improvement in asthma outcomes, including decreased hospitalizations, decreased Emergency Department (ED) visits, decreased missed school days, improved use of preventive asthma medications and improvement in asthma control. The Breathmobile visits schools in Baltimore City and provides on-site treatment to asthmatic patients.

WGP Warriors Against Addiction — Award Amount: $35,000

Providing Healthcare for the Underserved

Warriors Against Addiction provides education, awareness, support and navigation of resources to the people of the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland impacted by addiction. Qlarant Foundation funds support the Pay it Forward program training individual peers (those with lived experience) to work with those struggling with substance abuse and mental health conditions to improve their lives.