Grant funds will help state’s nonprofits meet vulnerable Mainers’ immediate needs
Portland – The John T. Gorman Foundation is awarding $700,000 to 44 Maine nonprofits through its annual Direct Services Grant Program. Through this support, the Foundation will partner with organizations who are working to meet the immediate needs of Maine’s most vulnerable people.
The Foundation’s funding is being awarded to a diverse group of organizations distributed throughout the state that offer essential services such as mental health, housing, food and crisis supports to low-income Mainers.
“At any point in time, there are thousands of Mainers with essential needs that aren’t being met—like the homeless individual trying to secure permanent housing, the child who goes hungry on the weekends, and the family that doesn’t know where to turn to for help,” said John T. Gorman Foundation Program Associate Lauralee Raymond, who manages the program. “Thankfully, Maine has a strong community of organizations that are committed to being there when our neighbors need it most. The John T. Gorman Foundation is grateful for their work and privileged to help support their vital efforts through our Direct Services Grant Program.”
John T. Gorman, known as Tom, was a grandson of L.L. Bean and established the Foundation in 1995 to help disadvantaged Mainers. In recent years, the independent, statewide Foundation has moved to focus strategically on four key areas: improving educational achievement for children; promoting successful transitions to adulthood for vulnerable older youth; helping struggling parents to support their families and enabling low-income seniors to remain in their homes as long as possible.
In addition to its other grant programs and initiatives, the Foundation has awarded over $8.8 million through its Direct Services Grant Program since 2012.
Full list of recipients below:
| Organization Name | Grant Amount | Grant Description | Counties Served |
| Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine, Inc. | $7,500.00 | To support economically disadvantaged kinship families through emergency financial assistance specific to food, heating and utilities assistance, and the provision of beds or cribs. | Statewide |
| Amistad | $15,000.00 | To provide general operating support. | Cumberland, Kennebec, Lincoln, Sagadahoc |
| Area Interfaith Outreach | $15,000.00 | To provide general operating support. | Knox |
| Augusta Food Bank | $20,000.00 | To support a backpack program, which provides nutritious food to food insecure children in the Augusta School System and at the Children’s Center of Augusta. | Kennebec |
| Avesta Housing Development Corporation | $25,000.00 | To support formerly homeless people who are transitioning from homelessness to affordable housing through an expansion of services in southern Maine. | Androscoggin, Cumberland, York |
| Bangor Area Homeless Shelter | $15,000.00 | To provide general operating support. | Statewide |
| Beacon Project | $10,000.00 | To fund transportation costs for low-income island residents to medical and other critical appointments on the mainland. | Waldo |
| City of Bangor Public Health & Community Services Department | $25,000.00 | To provide support for a Homeless Outreach Caseworker who will assist chronically homeless adults in securing and maintaining stable housing. | Penobscot |
| Friends of Aroostook | $10,000.00 | To provide general operating support. | Statewide |
| Furniture Friends | $10,000.00 | To provide general operating support. | Cumberland |
| H.O.M.E. Inc. | $15,000.00 | To provide general operating support. | Hancock |
| Hand in Hand, Mano en Mano | $15,000.00 | To provide immigrants and migrant workers with high-quality supports and referrals to meet their basic needs. | Hancock, Washington |
| Healthy Acadia | $20,000.00 | To support the Downeast Gleaning Initiative, which harvests surplus food that would otherwise go to waste and redistributes it to food pantries and other food security organizations across Hancock and Washington counties. | Hancock, Washington |
| Healthy Community Coalition | $25,000.00 | To provide support for free mobile healthcare services offered to low-income, under-served residents living in Franklin County. | Franklin |
| Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project | $16,000.00 | To provide general operating support. | Statewide |
| Kennebec Mental Health Association | $25,000.00 | To support the Homes and Community-Based Treatment Program, which provides intensive, in-home, team-based therapy for children and their families who are experiencing difficulties beyond the scope of regular outpatient counseling. | Kennebec, Somerset |
| Knox County Homeless Coalition | $15,000.00 | To provide support for general operations to serve homeless clients in Knox, Lincoln and parts of Waldo County. | Knox, Lincoln, Waldo |
| Lake Region Senior Service | $10,000.00 | To support a volunteer-based transportation service providing rides to medical appointments for individuals without other transportation options. | Androscoggin, Cumberland, Oxford, York |
| Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Center | $15,000.00 | To provide mental health counseling to low income Mainers residing in northern and eastern Maine. | Hancock, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Washington |
| MapleStone | $13,000.00 | To support the provision of mental health counseling and supports for students who have experienced trauma / Adverse Childhood Experiences. | Cumberland, York |
| MCH, Inc. | $15,000.00 | To provide nutritious meals and support services to low-income seniors and disabled adults in Knox County. | Knox |
| Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program | $15,000.00 | To support general operating costs associated with programs offered to low-income food-insecure Mainers in the midcoast area. | Androscoggin, Cumberland, Sagadahoc |
| Milestone Foundation | $15,000.00 | To provide support for the Milestone Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement (HOME) Team, which provides mobile health care, outreach, crisis intervention, and referral services for homeless adults in Portland. | Cumberland |
| Next Step Domestic Violence Project | $20,000.00 | To remove barriers to housing stability experienced by victims of abuse and their children through rent subsidies, one-time investments in immediate needs, and specialized housing advocacy. | Hancock, Washington |
| Northern Light Inland Hospital | $25,000.00 | To support on-site food, food security resources, and transportation vouchers for primary care patients at Northern Light Inland Hospital who are screened and identified as in need of additional supports. | Kennebec, Somerset, Waldo |
| Portland Public Library | $25,000.00 | To support Portland Public Library’s Social Worker in Residence, who works to connect the library’s most vulnerable low-income patrons to social services and basic need supports. | Cumberland |
| Preble Street | $25,000.00 | To provide general operating support. | Statewide |
| Prosperity ME | $15,000.00 | To support the provision of financial and housing education activities within Maine’s immigrant, refugee and asylee communities. | Androscoggin, Cumberland |
| River Valley Healthy Communities Coalition | $15,000.00 | To provide food to low-income food-insecure children, families and senior citizens in Oxford County. | Oxford |
| Rockland District Nursing Association | $15,000.00 | To support general operations for the provision of affordable, non-acute, in-home nursing services to low-income elderly residents of Rockland and seven surrounding communities. | Knox |
| Rural Community Action Ministry | $15,000.00 | To provide general operating to support at-risk individuals living in rural areas of Androscoggin, Kennebec and Oxford counties via services for basic needs, homelessness and hunger prevention. | Androscoggin, Kennebec, Oxford |
| Seeds of Hope Neighborhood Center | $10,000.00 | To support general operations. | York |
| Shalom House | $10,000.00 | To provide support for an emergency fund that low-income clients may access to meet their basic housing, health, transportation and other critical needs when other payment sources have been exhausted. | Cumberland, York |
| South Portland Food Cupboard | $15,000.00 | To provide support for general operations. | Statewide, Cumberland, Oxford, York |
| Tedford Housing | $15,000.00 | To provide general operating support. | Cumberland, Sagadahoc |
| The Center for Grieving Children | $10,000.00 | To provide food and transportation services to low-income New Mainer youth participants of the Intercultural Peer Support Program. | Cumberland |
| The Opportunity Alliance | $25,000.00 | To provide financial supports to individuals and families at risk of homelessness in order to maintain and/or secure their housing. | Cumberland |
| The Progress Center | $15,000.00 | To support community meals and food distribution programs serving low-income people, including home-delivery to recently discharged hospital patients at risk for malnutrition. | Androscoggin, Cumberland, Franklin, Oxford |
| The Root Cellar | $20,000.00 | To support the Friends and Neighbors Network food model, which places recipients in charge of their own food needs through their active participation in the program with other neighbors. | Androscoggin, Cumberland |
| The Shaw House | $15,000.00 | To support the general operations of the only homeless youth shelter contracted with the State of Maine to provide emergency shelter and support services to homeless youth in central and northern Maine. | Statewide |
| Through These Doors (formerly Family Crisis Services) | $15,000.00 | To support the provision of food for domestic violence shelter residents and to provide one-time financial assistance for basic needs such as food, clothing, medication or transportation. | Cumberland |
| Unitarian Universalist Association | $8,500.00 | To provide support for the purchase of non-food essentials for people in need. | York |
| United Way of Aroostook | $5,000.00 | To support the purchase of clothing items that cannot be sourced secondhand for distribution to low-income people accessing the Kids Community Closets in Aroostook County. | Aroostook |
| York County Community Action Corporation | $15,000.00 | To support transportation services through the York County Transport program, targeting populations for whom no other specialized transportation funds are available. | York |
