During a regular meeting of City Council on Wednesday, April 15, City Council was presented with a list of grant awards for the #GJStrong Fund. This fund was created on Monday, April 6, 2020 when City Council passed an emergency appropriation of $500,000 to be administered by the Western Colorado Community Foundation (WCCF). This was a “rapid response” process to solicit requests and distribute grant funds to nonprofit organizations seeing increased demand for food and housing assistance as a result of the COVID-19 health and economic crisis.

The Western Colorado Community Foundation received a total of 28 applications for the #GJStrong Fund. Eight applications were removed from consideration because they did not meet eligibility requirements. The total amount of funding requested from the 20 eligible applications was over $810,000. The list of grant awards can be found on the City’s website.

Of the $500,000 to be distributed, approximately half the funding being distributed is for food assistance and half is for housing and shelter-related needs. Grant checks will be processed by the end of this week, getting the funds into the hands of the selected nonprofits as quickly as possible.

Anne Wenzel President and Executive Director of the Western Colorado Community Foundation stated, “Please know a half a million dollars to these organizations represents a large and generous commitment of the City of Grand Junction during this time of COVID-19 health and economic emergency. WCCF feels this funding provides substantial support on an emergency basis. The bulk of these emergency funds will be used in full in the next several weeks to respond to needs”.

Contact: Greg LeBlanc, Sr. Assistant to the City Manager 970-244-1557 or gregoryl@gjcity.org

Anne Wenzel, President and Executive Director, Western Colorado Community Foundation (970) 376-0429 or awenzel@wc-cf.org