Community Foundations

Keep Belmont Beautiful, an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, has been using the proceeds from a Community Foundation Grant to help educate third graders in Belmont about environmental issues.

This grant, entitled Planting the Seeds of Learning, is being used to provide a monthly program to North Belmont and Belmont Central Elementary students.

October’s program was on water conservation, and children learned tips for conserving water, current levels of rainfall, and the mandated water restrictions by the City of Belmont. They all received a 30-minute program on water conservation tips and were given copies of water conservation tips to take home and a word search and coloring section on water conservation. All third grade classes were given presentations by Carolyn Sly on how to construct a compost pile, each class room receiving all of the equipment to build it.

Keep Belmont Beautiful educates and involves the community in litter and waste reduction, recycling, beautification and natural resources conservation.

The Community Foundation of Gaston County will hold the 6th Annual Run for the Money on Saturday, April 19, 2008.

More than 105 non-profit community groups will benefit from the contributions to the Community Foundation which has distributed $5.1 million to organizations since it begin in 2003.

Organizations must be certified charitable organizations, school-based programs, or faith-based groups, to be able to participate in the events. 

In February 2008, donation forms will be available from the Community Foundation. People wishing to donate funds for specific groups need only to designate which organization they wish their funds to support. The Community Foundation provides a formula match up to $10,000. In May, the organizations receive matching funds from the foundation.

Check out the Community Foundation of Gaston County website for more details.