For the past 21 years, the Sunflower County Freedom Project has had the privilege of working with students who live in the county by providing them with educational opportunities beyond the classroom.
“For many of those years, the project has been fortunate to be a grant recipient of King’s Daughters and Sons Circle No. 2,” said Sunflower County Freedom Project executive director Kate Gluckman at Tuesday’s annual King’s Daughters and Sons Circle No. 2 recognition meeting.
“When the King’s Daughter hospital was sold in 2000, the King’s Daughters and Sons Circle No. 2 foundation was given the responsibility of deciding who would receive the grants which come from the investment income off of the sale of the hospital,” said Merrill Greenlee, the Allocations Committee Chairperson for the organization.
A newly named grant, The Betsy Hartman Dyer grant, was awarded to the Community Foundation of Washington County (CFWC) in honor of Dyer’s significant contributions to Washington County and the Mississippi Delta.
CFCW’s executive director Will Coppage accepted the award on behalf of the foundation and said, “Betsy made echoes in leadership in Washington County and in the Delta as a whole and that’s what we all strive to be.”
Every year, the grants are awarded only to 501(c) organizations that span a five county area — Washington, Bolivar, Sunflower and Sharkey counties in Mississippi and Chicot County in Arkansas.
The projects that are submitted to the organization fall into one of three categories: education, health or general welfare.
The projects awarded are set to get underway by Sept. 1 and run through Aug. 31 of next year.
King’s Daughters and Sons Circle No. 2 have given over $3.2 million in grants in 17 years.
The organization reviewed submissions from 31 applicants this year and they were able to award funds to 26 of them, totaling $182,000 in funding.
They were also able to award nursing scholarships in the amount of $8,000, bringing their total of funds to $190,000.
Organizations awarded grants this year are:
- Alex Foundation
- B.B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center
- C2k Ministries
- Camp Looking Glass
- Cleveland Music Foundation
- Community Counseling Center
- Delta Arts Alliance Inc.
- Delta Branch of MS Kidney Foundation
- Delta Children’s Museum
- Delta Cotton Belles
- Delta Grace Inc.
- Delta Hands for Hope
- Delta State Foundation/BPAC Reading Program
- First Presbyterian Pottery
- Greenville Arts Council
- Greenville Renaissance Scholars
- Helping Hands of Cleveland
- Rosedale Freedom Project
- St. Vincent de Paul
- Sunflower County Freedom Project
- Teach for America
- United Way Housing Initiative
- Washington County Library System
- Washington County Workforce Development Fund
- Washington School
- Winterville Mounds Park Association
King’s Daughters and Sons Circle No. 2 awards four grants named after people the organization recognizes as leaders in their communities in addition to the Betsy Hartman Dyer Grant.
The Nate Adams Grant was awarded to Sunflower County Freedom Project; the Elmo Bradley Grant was awarded to Rosedale Freedom Project; the Norman Neil DeLong Richards Grant was awarded to Washington School; and the Leila Clark Wynn Grant was awarded to C2K ministries.
This year’s nursing scholarship recipients were Stella-Maris Ndubuisi and Joshua Simmons.
