Category: Spark Grants
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Laughter and Food Build Community at Kain Tayo! Filipino Fiesta
Tacoma-based arts organizer Clarissa Grace Gines and local chef Jan Parker struggled to find events in Pierce County that celebrated their Filipino heritage. After years of driving to Seattle to attend events, they recently applied for – and received – a Spark Grant to help create their own event locally. Kain Tayo!, which translates > Continue Reading
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Spark Grant Recipient Helps Provide ‘Showers of Dignity’ for Homeless Neighbors
They say some of the best ideas come while you’re in the shower, but for Spark Grant recipient Christine Dodson, the shower itself was her big idea. Her program, Showers of Dignity, aims to provide access to showers for people experiencing homelessness in the Tillicum and Woodbrook community. “It’s definitely a dignity issue. Any one > Continue Reading
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GTCF Spark Grant Recipient Tackling “Period Poverty” at Local Schools
Sharon Chambers-Gordon was first exposed to the issue of “Period Poverty” through her own daughter’s experience. “She was in Middle School when it happened for the first time, and she didn’t have any supplies with her.” Luckily the school nurse had a few sanitary napkins, but the nurse told Sharon it wasn’t something that > Continue Reading
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Sparking Change Starts With Seeing The Need
Seventeen year-old Caleb Kamalu was volunteering at F.U.N Food Bank in his hometown of University Place when he noticed food bank staff struggling to explain something to a customer. The woman had filled up her cart with more than the allotted amount of items, and a staff member was trying to explain that she > Continue Reading
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Spark Grants Light Up Communities
It all started with a conversation. Sandra Smith, a real estate agent from Buckley, says she was talking with her teenage daughter and a group of classmates about a lack of opportunity to contribute to community when the idea for Merry on Main was born. “They all said, ‘We would [get involved] if there > Continue Reading
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Local Girls Connect with Nature and Career Possibilities through Environmental Justice Camp
When T’wina Nobles walked into her office on a recent Monday morning, she couldn’t wait to tell her co-workers about the Environmental Justice Camp she hosted for a group of local girls over the weekend. “I was so excited, I was like, Oh you’ve got to see all the pictures!” The Environmental Justice Camp was > Continue Reading
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Chalk Art Builds Community on Thea Foss Waterway
“We didn’t even know all this was down here.” That’s the reaction Ian Wilkinson, General Manager of the Foss Harbor Marina, often hears when people first encounter the parks, restaurants, and other recreational activities available on the waterfront. “Maybe it’s because of how the waterfront is separated, as a result of the highway being here, there > Continue Reading
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Spark Grants: Creative Solutions from Grassroots Leaders
While volunteering with elementary school students in Tacoma’s Eastside neighborhood, Chelsea McElroy saw a lot of girls fighting and getting into trouble at school. Wanting to help, she brought the girls together to work out their issues peacefully. The problem was, when she got all the girls in a room together, nobody wanted to > Continue Reading