Grant program aims to improve San Bruno

The initiative grows as it steps into its second year through a collaboration with YouTube, which contributed $100,000 to the grant fund — expanding its potency and impact, said foundation Executive Director Leslie Hatamiya.

“They saw it as a way to give back to the community,” said Hatamiya, of the video streaming titan’s participation. “Rather than creating their own project, they could piggyback on some of the things we were doing and that would allow us to support more organizations than we could with the foundation’s money.”

With the contribution from YouTube and Google.org, the charitable arm of video streaming company’s parent organization Alphabet, the foundation’s grant program grew by $100,000 and nine recipients from the $200,000 shared between 14 organizations last year.

The grants range in value from about $1,600 to install a bike fix-it station at the city’s BART stop to $20,000 for housing support service Project Sentinel.

Jaqueline Ramirez, a county program manager and senior housing advocate for Project Sentinel, said the money will go far to advance the nonprofit’s work amidst the city’s changing housing landscape.

“This money is going to be really helpful in targeting our efforts in San Bruno,” she said.

Project Sentinel offers services such as housing dispute resolution, renter and landlord legal education courses, housing discrimination investigation and other similar programs throughout San Mateo County.

Ramirez said considering San Bruno’s relative affordability compared to neighboring communities, it is reasonable to expect coming wave of demographic transition, which could invite an uptick in the nonprofit’s service calls.

A San Bruno resident, Ramirez said she has a front-row seat to that transition taking hold.

“I have seen the change already and I see it continuing,” she said, pointing to a slate of development interest rolling into San Bruno over the past few years.

With the grant money, Ramirez said Project Sentinel will primarily boost its outreach efforts in San Bruno to help build awareness among residents regarding the service.

Illustrating the likelihood a grant applicant can effectively implement the programs to be funded by the foundation’s funding is an essential part of the vetting and approval process, said Hatamiya.

Regarding the partnership with Project Sentinel, Hatamiya said the foundation is pleased to finance efforts seeking to mitigate the affordability crisis generated by the local housing crunch.

“Housing is such a significant issue on the Peninsula right now, but the foundation is not set up to build affordable housing or help in that way, so we are grateful for the chance to help through programs like Project Sentinel,” Hatamiya said.

The foundation also awarded grants to housing support organizations such as Society of St. Vincent de Paul of San Mateo County and the Catholic Worker Hospitality House. St. Vincent de Paul of San Mateo County received a grant last year, but the other two housing support groups were awarded money for the first time.

While Hatamiya said she appreciated growing the reach of the foundation’s grant program to new recipients, she also enjoyed the opportunity to continue supporting programs which received an initial round of financing in the initiative’s inaugural year.

One such example is $5,000 to the Via Heart Project, addressing heart safety at Parkside Intermediate School in San Bruno. Last year, the foundation granted $15,000 to the program to purchase and install AED machines as well as CPR training to provide care in case of an emergency.

Hatamiya said the larger initial investment helped get the program off the ground, and the following, smaller contribution is paying toward its continuing operation.

“We are building on last year’s grant,” she said.

Under terms of the initiative, programs may seek three sequential years of funding for a specific program. In the fourth year, an organization can submit another grant application, but the money must go to another service.

“These are good programs we want to be open to funding, but we don’t want them to be completely dependent on us,” she said.

The foundation started the grant program along with a variety of other initiatives to allocate the nearly $70 million paid by Pacific Gas and Electric following the gas pipeline explosion which devastated the Crestmoor neighborhood in 2010.

The grant program is the second round of efforts between YouTube and the foundation this year, as the two recently partnered on a variety of pedestrian safety infrastructure improvements near local school campuses.

Looking ahead, Hatamiya said she is enthusiastic to see the grant program take hold and improve a variety of social programs in San Bruno.

“We really love this program and our ability to share the restitution funds with local organizations doing great work in our community,” she said. “I think it’s a wonderful and worthwhile use of the restitution funds and a program we hope to carry on for years.”

Visit sbcf.org/copy-of-2016-17-community-grant-win for a full list of the grant winners.

austin@smdailyjournal.com

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