Open Your Heart Foundation Provides Over $85,000 in COVID-19 Response Funding
In 2020, in an effort to ensure that homeless service providers and food shelves were able to plan, prepare, and respond to COVID-19, Open Your Heart to the Hunger and Homeless quickly provided emergency funding towards plans to protect the homeless and give them a place to recover in isolation, deploy street teams to work with those living in encampments, purchase additional unplanned foods and supplies for individuals and families facing food insecurity and other needs as expressed by front-line service agencies.
First Round Grantees
A Place For You
$1,200 | Pine City, MN
To provide hotel vouchers for those unable to be welcomed into the shelter.
Ain Dah Yung Center
$3,000 | St. Paul, MN
To help keep Street Outreach workers safe while they perform vital health checks and crisis intervention with youth experiencing homelessness.
Avivo
$2,284 | Minneapolis, MN
To provide protective and sanitation supplies to help people living in outdoor encampments protect themselves from exposure to the coronavirus.
Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative
$3,000 | St. Paul, MN
To support families experiencing homelessness during the COVID-19 response, which has caused Beacon to cancel congregation hosting and move families into motels for overnight stays.
Bountiful Basket Food Shelf of Eastern Carver County
$2,000 | Chaska, MN
Funding towards allowing their food shelf budget to stay stable while more aggressively helping with hunger relief efforts during this time of crisis.
Community Emergency Assistance Program (CEAP)
$3,000 | Brooklyn Center, MN
To help continue serving their neighbors the same amount of meals, visits and pounds; but pivoting distribution approach to limit exposure.
Damiano Center
$3,000 | Duluth, MN
To purchase additional unplanned food and supplies for individuals, families, and youth facing food insecurity.
Family Promise of Kandiyohi County
$3,000 | Willmar, MN
To host overnight guests at the current day center and still provide for their needs until the churches can host in the future.
Grace House of Itasca County
$3,000 | Grand Rapids, MN
Motel vouchers to provide better isolation and private restrooms for each individual experiencing homelessness instead of the cubicles and communal restrooms at the shelter.
Great River Family Promise
$3,000 | Elk River, MN
To help provide shelter and quarantine families affected by COVID-19 and support the organization’s solutions regarding COVID-19.
Hope for the Journey Home
$3,000 | Oakdale, MN
For hotel vouchers to help protect shelter families, staff, and volunteers from COVID-19.
Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans (MACV)
$3,000 | St. Paul, MN
For hotel vouchers to help serve single Veterans who are currently experiencing homeless and are in need of a hotel stay in the event they are coming from shelter on their way into transitional or permanent housing.
Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC)
$2,000 | Minneapolis, MN
To provide emergency access to gift cards for food and two to three night hotel stays across Street Outreach and Drop-In Center programs.
Neighbors to Friends
$1,500 | Sauk Rapids, MN
To provide safe shelter and an isolation area in a local motel for homeless individuals who have health conditions.
People Incorporated
$3,000 | St. Paul, MN
To purchase food and water to be distributed by street outreach teams to individuals living in encampments.
Place of Hope Ministries
$3,000 | St. Cloud, MN
To set up hand washing stations, porta-potties, sanitation and infection control measures for those who work with and who are themselves experiencing homelessness.
Red Lake Homeless Shelter
$3,000 | Red Lake, MN
To help offset the cost for all of the extra cleaning supplies to keep the shelter safe for the duration of the quarantine time from the virus.
Ruth’s House of Hope, Inc.
$1,500 | Faribault, MN
To purchase local hotel vouchers for any current resident fifty years of age and older, or those with compromised immune systems in case of a COVID-19 outbreak within the shelter.
Sojourner Project
$1,500 | Minnetonka, MN
To provide hotel vouchers to clients in need of isolation because of the COVID-19 virus due to exposure or underlying conditions that put the victim at greater risk of illness.
St. Andrew’s Community Resource Center
$2,920 | Mahtomedi, MN
To help provide an extended stay hotel as a temporary shelter solution for families experiencing homelessness to practice social distancing from the others in a congregate setting.
The Salvation Army of Fergus Falls
$3,000| Fergus Falls, MN
To help cover the additional costs of activities to prepare and respond to the community’s needs during this time.
Union Gospel Mission, Duluth
$3,000| Duluth, MN
To purchase products needed to continue to provide “to-go” meals and add more meals to current curbside/to-go meal program in response to the coronavirus.
Western Communities Action Network (WeCAN)
$3,000| Mound, MN
To support their Mobile Market and Kids Food Program serving youth, families, individuals, and seniors facing food insecurity.
Women of Nations
$1,500| St. Paul, MN
To provide hotel/motel vouchers for families or individuals at high risk.
Second Round Grantees
Casa de Esperanza
$1,500 | St. Paul, MN
To purchase food, essential household supplies and fund hotel vouchers for individuals who are uncontaminated and at high-risk.
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Cloud
$3,000 | St. Cloud, MN
To provide hotel vouchers for clients who are vulnerable that have not contracted COVID-19.
Churches United
$3,000 | Moorhead, MN
To support the purchase of extra food and supplies needed to serve guests.
Joyce Uptown Foodshelf
$3,000 | Minneapolis, MN
To support the emergency response of Joyce Uptown Foodshelf to provide food with respect and dignity to all who come.
Merrick Community Services
$3,000 | St. Paul, MN
To address the critical needs of low-income East Side families from all backgrounds.
New Oil Christian Center
$3,000 | Minneapolis, MN
To support seniors that are homeless and trying to survive the Coronavirus with emergency shelter, food, and hygiene packages.
North Anoka County Emergency Foodshelf & Clothing Closet (NACE)
$3,000 | East Bethel, MN
To purchase more food and supplies in order to respond properly to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Peoples Church ELCA
$3,000 | Bemidji, MN
To support increased food/supply needs in Shelter Services for people who are homeless and/or hungry in Bemidji.
The Dwelling Place
$1,500 | Columbia Heights, MN To provide hotel vouchers for individuals who are uncontaminated and at high-risk.