Over 30 non-profits from various sectors came together for Grant Awards Night on Thursday, July 12. Hosted by the Community Foundation for San Benito County (CFFSBC), the event celebrated non-profit organizations for their hard work and their continuous efforts to give back to their community. The event was held at the San Benito County Historical Park. 

During the introduction CFFSBC board member Susan Modic explained the non-profits were chosen by the Grants Committee who is made up of volunteers who logged in over “300 hours", going through applicants.  

41 out of 54 applicants were awarded funding this year, CFFSBC Grants and Projects Manager, Salina Chacon said. 

“Together the organizations were awarded $250,000,” she added. “Funding comes from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Martin Rajkovich Children’s Fund and individual donors.” 

BenitoLink, once a project of the Community Foundation and now a community supported nonprofit news site, was one of the grant recipients.

Throughout the night guests were able to hear about the exciting projects the grants were able to fund. Some of those projects include: 

• Funding for San Benito High School Sober Grad Night, which provides graduating Seniors a safe place to celebrate their High School Graduation at no cost.  
• Chamberlain’s Children Center will continue to fund their various programs including their non-public school and their Wellness Center 
• CASA will use the funds to train people to be child advocates for children going through the foster care system  
• Fishes and Loaves will use the funds to continue to distribute food to families in need five days a week. They have served about 4,000 families so far this year.  
• Hazel Hawkins Hospital will use the grant to help them fund a program where patients talk to medically trained translators over “Skype.” 
• Hollister Tremors will be using the funds to help with the upkeep of the fields and buying new equipment.  
• Pinnacles National Park foundation will use the grant to help fund a project to reduce incidents of lost hikers, provide eight new trail heads, and produce a newspaper. 
• BenitoLink will use the grant for a website update and re-design that will make the site more easily accessible for nonprofits, businesses and community members while aggressively expanding the site's professional journalism capabilities. 

BenitoLink is fortunate to be one of the many non-profits awarded a grant enabling a major update to the news site. Looking ahead to the future, BenitoLink will be changing to a platform with more creative range, better revenue opportunity and will be easier for our county residents to use. The BenitoLink team values highly our community contributors and feels a friendlier, simpler format will be more welcoming and less challenging for the public. The board and BenitoLink team felt Drupal, the current platform used by BenitoLink, has severe limitations and that a move to a more dynamic platform will benefit both BenitoLink and the community as a whole. Benitolink thanks the Community Foundation for San Benito County for its original vision and continued support. The new design will be both citizen-friendly and will expand the professional journalism capabilities of the website. It will be unveiled later this year.