COVID-19 Response News & Grants

Week 2 News & Grants Announcement

March 27, 2020

How PCF is responding

We know for certain the impacts of the pandemic will be rippling through our community for many months ahead. At PCF, we have been triaging our operations over the last week to quickly and diligently focus all our efforts on a response to the COVID-19 crisis. Staff have been working closely with health officials, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and businesses to ascertain community needs, help coordinate support, and mobilize philanthropic resources in the most effective way possible. We are fortunate to have PCF board member Raúl Martínez, who works at Placer County Health & Human Services, to inform us regularly and we are communicating weekly with more than 30 local nonprofits on the front lines of safety net services.

What we know based on an initial needs assessment

COVID-19 cases will increase significantly. Placer County’s Health & Human Services and Public Health Department tells us we can expect the number of laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 to increase significantly in Placer County over the coming weeks. You can check their website for an official count plus other valuable guidelines and resources here.
Food insecurity is on the rise, while the food system is working with diminishing resources. The needs assessment findings show that the nonprofit food system is need of resources to ramp up capacity and meet demand.
Homebound seniors need services. From interviews and consultations with over 30 human service organizations, PCF quickly assessed a primary need to ensure food is available and able to be delivered to homebound seniors. (Placer County’s population is roughly four years older on average than all of CA.)

Round 1 Grants

With resources from PCF’s COVID-19 Response Fund, the Foundation made initial grants to address impacts to the nonprofit food system and growing food insecurity among vulnerable families and homebound seniors. A total of $65,000 was granted toward an initial effort to increase the region’s food bank infrastructure, resources at hand, and the delivery system.

$50,000 was granted to the Placer Food Bank to assist with improvements to and scaling of infrastructure for managing food distribution to 60 partner agencies throughout the region. This also helps Placer Food Bank expand to meet the need of local churches who are also looking to distribute food.
$10,000 was granted to Seniors First providing support to homebound seniors in the form of delivered meals.
$5,000 was granted to Auburn Interfaith Food Closet for purchasing additional food.

Week 4 News & Grants Announcement

April 8, 2020

What we learned

Through PCF’s routine communications across our nonprofit network, we have heard a lot of testimony regarding economic hardship across the community. In particular, layoffs are becoming more prevalent and the wait for relief checks are hitting vulnerable families especially hard. With this in mind, the PCF Grants Committee decided to focus available COVID-19 Fund dollars on youth from these households who are home from school without their usual routine of regular meals and activities. The Grants Committee also elected to aid a new opportunity that would enable volunteers to assist those without a support network in the remote areas around Foresthill.

Round 2 Grants

The second set of grants deployed from the COVID-19 Response Fund reflect this strategy. Grant recipients include the Salvation Army sites in South and Mid Placer, and the Giving Hearts group based out of Foresthill. The allocations are as follows:

Two $7,500 grants were sent to Salvation Army sites ($15,000 total) to support underserved youth across South and Mid Placer areas spanning Colfax to Roseville. These funds are being used to support programs that provide food boxes and sack lunches, as well as activity bags geared toward single-parent households.

$1,800 grant was sent to Foresthill Residents for Responsible Growth, which is enabling their Giving Hearts group to deliver needed supplies to widowed, disabled, and shut-in seniors.

Salvation Army Roseville and Auburn food programs are being supported by COVID-19 Response Funds.