The board of the Unifour Foundation Endowment recently announced $218,560 in grant awards, having four focus/issue areas.

This year the board granted nine grants totaling $36,000 in early childhood development and education to the following organizations and projects:

• Sipe’s Orchard Home for Tyndall Pre-K library improvement
• Alexander County Partnership for Children for Circle of Parents in Alexander County
• Lenoir-Rhyne University Visiting Writer Series for the university’s 31st season of the visiting writer series
• Morning Star’s Youth Mission for the Reach Back tutorial program
• Western Piedmont Foundation for 3D Printer: Student Gateway to Manufacturing Technology
• Catawba Valley Community College for Cultivating Character in Tomorrow’s Talent
• Caldwell County Lions Association for their operations
• Catawba Science Center for Creating Access to Science (CATS)
• Patrick Beaver Learning Resource Center, Inc. for Seeking Potential Avidly Reading Kids (SPARK)

They granted 4 grants totaling $75,500 in their focus area of substance abuse to the following organizations and projects:

• Catawba Valley Behavioral Healthcare for L.E.A.D.- Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion
• Safe Harbor Rescue Mission for Building a Solid Foundation Phase II
• TROSA (Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers, Inc.) for residential substance abuse recovery services for individuals from the Unifour region
• AIDS Leadership Foothills- Area Alliance for HIV and Hepatitis C prevention, detection and care in injection drug users

They granted 5 grants totaling $18,000 in the arts issue area to the following organizations and projects:

• Friends of Hickory for their collaborative community calendar
• Footcandle Film Society for the 2019 Footcandle Film Festival
• Western Piedmont Symphony, Inc. for Link Up- Expanding Music Education Opportunities in the Unifour Region
• Hickory Community Theatre for Keeping Downtown Hickory Alive and Vibrant
• Hickory Museum of Art for Collecting and Creating: Juan Logan’s Sources of Inspiration

Finally, they granted 18 grants totaling $89,060 in the health and human services issue area to the following organizations and projects:

• Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina for backpacks for food-insecure children in Burke County
• South Caldwell Christian Ministries for feeding the hungry
• Helping Hands Clinic of Caldwell County, Inc. for access to lifesaving medication for uninsured adults
• North Carolina School for the Deaf at Morganton Foundation, Inc. for Lifelines for the Deaf and Blind
• Eastern Catawba Cooperative Christian Ministry, Inc. for Emergency Crisis Financial Assistance
• Women’s Resource Center for their Long Term Case Management Program
• Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC for Healthy Food for Local Seniors
• 957 Mobile Café for their operations
• Catawba County Council on Aging for their operations
• Habitat for Humanity- Catawba Valley, Inc. for their operations
• The Corner Table for general program support
• Caldwell Senior Center, Inc. for their operations
• Hickory Soup Kitchen for providing nutritious food to the hungry in the greater Hickory area
• The Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club of Hickory for the Light Bulb Modernization Project
• Greater Hickory Cooperative Christian Ministry (GHCCM) for their program NetWorX Catawba
• Family Care Center of Catawba Valley, Inc. for Making a Home for the Homeless
• Adult Life Programs, Inc. for their operations

Jamie Treadaway, Unifour Foundation board president, thanked the community for its continued support of the Unifour Foundation Endowment. “We are proud to support these nonprofit programs that are so vital to the community,” she said. “We are grateful to the many generous individuals and organizations that have supported our work to inspire philanthropy across our community.”