Long Island social change nonprofits get $200G in awards from Unitarian fund

The Long Island Unitarian Universalist Fund has awarded  eight grants totaling more than $200,000 to support a range of nonprofits across Long Island working on various areas of social change, it announced Tuesday. 

The donor-advised fund focused on nonprofits involved in advocating immigrant rights, community organizing, educational equity, racial equity and justice, environmental justice, women's rights and more, said spokeswoman Marie C. Smith.

Recipients of the 2023 social change grants include: Bend the Arc — A Jewish Partnership for Justice; the Butterfly Effect Project; Centro Corazon de Maria; LatinoJustice  PRLDEF; OLA of Eastern Long Island; Padoquohan Medicine Lodge; Teatro Experimental Yerbabruja; and The Advocacy Institute. The grants range between $20,000 and $30,000 and will be used for a wide range of programs, the LIUUF said.

Bend the Arc received $25,000 to organize allies to advance parole justice and criminal justice reform, the LIUUF said, while the $30,000 awarded the Padoquohan Medicine Lodge will help protect the cultural identity of the Shinnecock Nation and other tribes. Teatro Experimental will use its $25,000 grant to fund a social justice arts program and help promote an "inclusive school environment" for Latino immigrant youth. LatinoJustice will use its $25,000 grant for legal advocacy supporting Latino immigrants on Long Island.

Butterfly Effect Project founder and executive director Tijuana Fulford was overjoyed at news of its $25,000 grant, which she said will allow the organization to focus on improvements to the garden at its site on Northville Turnpike in Riverhead. Members, who range in age from 3 to 90, will plant and grow food in a sustainable garden to provide  produce for a member pantry, as well as to donate to food banks.

"We live on an island surrounded by water," Fulford said, "but for communities of color we live in a food desert. . . . Being able to have something as small as a garden allows us to have these conversations about food injustice, about access, about need, because when you don't have access to farms, when you don't have access to a garden, where are you going to get your tomatoes?"

Fulford said the grant also will allow her members to learn about and gain access to "healthy choices."

Marian Russo, chair of the LIUUF advisory committee, said in a statement Tuesday: "The Fund advisors are proud to support these valued organizations that initiate and facilitate programs supporting grassroots organizing, leadership development, and community advocacy efforts. This work is critical to protecting, empowering, and amplifying the voices of our neighbors who are often furthest from justice and opportunity."

During the past three decades, the LIUUF has awarded millions of dollars to protect "the civil and human rights of people of color, immigrants, women, GLBT individuals, and disadvantaged people," according to the mission statement on its website. 

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”