C4C awards $7,000 for community building

Local nonprofit Citizens4Community (C4C) recently selected 10 organizations, businesses, and individuals as the recipients of its 2024 Momentum Grants. Now in its fifth year, the program offers funding for grassroots projects aligned with the Sisters Country Vision.

The Vision is a “guiding light” for the community, developed through a citizen-led process and designed to offer a long-term framework for the future of Sisters Country. A Vision Implementation Team (VIT) composed of local agency, organizational, and community leaders currently serves as steward of the Vision.

This year, C4C committed $7,000 for projects that make Sisters Country more prosperous, livable, resilient, and connected. They received 24 applications — a nearly three-fold increase from 2023. This made for a difficult process for the Selection Committee, which included two C4C board members and three VIT representatives.

The Committee selected the following 2024 grant recipients:

• Central Oregon Trail Alliance, for the purchase of a gazebo that will provide shade cover at Bike Park 242 (next to SPRD’s Coffield Center).

• Furry Friends Foundation, to stock their free pet food bank, keeping the pets of lower-income community members in homes and out of shelters and rescues.

• Lazy Z Ranch, to teach students about pollinator habitat restoration and soil health monitoring through a collaborative program with the Sisters High School Greenhouse Class.

• Living Well With Dementia Sisters, to produce local events focused on providing support, education, and resources for community members with dementia and their care partners.

• Romeo’s Joy, for a new project combating social isolation and mental decline by providing local at-risk seniors with free animatronic “companion animals.”

• Rotary Club of Sisters, to launch a “Merchant Passport Program” during the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, boosting community engagement and foot traffic for downtown merchants.

• Seed to Table, to develop a new program at Sisters Farmers Market, offering community-oriented activities in the Sisters Makers building next to Fir Street Park.

• Sisters School District Special Education Department, for their summer work program teaching job skills to secondary school students. Look for their ice cream cart in local parks this summer.

• Sisters Middle School Sunshine Club, for an after school program that fosters intergenerational connectivity by bringing students to The Lodge in Sisters for regular activities, crafts, and celebrations.

• Sisters Festival of Books, for the relaunch of a three-day festival celebrating the literary culture of Central Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.

“We were overwhelmed by the interest in our Momentum Grants program this year, and by the caliber of the applications,” said Kellen Klein, C4C’s Executive Director. “To see such a robust, wide-ranging set of ideas was incredibly inspiring, and an indicator of just how much potential for positive impact our community holds.

“At the same time, it highlights the ongoing difficulty that both new and well-established groups have securing funding for important local work. We encourage the charitably-inclined within our community to double down on their efforts to give, buy, invest, and volunteer locally.”