2020 Grant Awards

AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION
$35,000

The American Civic Association (ACA) helps immigrants and refugees in the Binghamton area with a variety of services, including paperwork completion, citizenship classes, community and legal workshops, employment assistance for refugees, and general assistance and information. While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the ACA to restrict in-person contact, they continue many of their services on line. Unfortunately, lack of internet access and language barriers keep quite a few immigrants from interacting with the ACA through its web site. And with the building closed, the ACA has much less opportunity to inform immigrants and refugees in person about available services. To address this challenge, the ACA decided to erect an LED sign outside its building – a well-trafficked spot in downtown Binghamton – and use it to provide information about available programs and services in multiple languages. A grant from the Hoyt Foundation provided $35,000 toward the purchase of that sign.

BROOME COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL
$100,000

The Broome County Arts Council (BCAC) promotes a thriving arts community in a variety of ways. Among others, these include community outreach and education, public art programming, a social media presence, fundraising and grantmaking, and free community programming to underserved populations. Through its United Cultural Fund (UCF), BCAC provides unrestricted general operating support to established arts organizations and grants to support projects by individual artists and other community-based nonprofits. Hoyt provided $100,000 toward the 2021 United Cultural Fund Campaign in 2020.

BROOME COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL
$120,000

In 2021, the Broome County Arts Council (BCAC) will launch the Broome County Arts Guide, an 80-page, full color, glossy book and keepsake, available to the public free of charge throughout Broome County. The guide will highlight artists, writers, musicians, studios, museums, galleries and arts organizations in the county and inform potential visitors about local attractions. BCAC aims to publish one booklet in 2021 and two booklets each in 2022 and 2023. The Hoyt Foundation will support the project with a special project grant of $40,000 per year for three years.

BROOME COUNTY COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
$20,000

Since 2009, the RAMP IT UP Youth Initiative at the Broome County Council of Churches (BCCC) has built more than 172 ramps on homes in Broome County, allowing elderly and disabled people to exit and re-enter their homes independently. Youth groups and their adult mentors, all volunteers, build the ramps at a cost of about $40 per linear foot. Residents pay little or nothing for the ramps, based on income. While aiding residents, the program also gives young participants basic construction skills and fosters a sense of volunteerism, responsibility and compassion. In 2020, the Hoyt Foundation granted BCCC $20,000 toward the cost of construction materials for RAMP IT UP.

LOURDES FOUNDATION
$75,000

Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton provides mammograms through its Breast Care Center and a Mobile Mammography Van. Lourdes will use a $75,000 grant from Hoyt to replace a two-dimensional mammography unit in each of those facilities. The current units are 15 years old and reaching the end of their lives. In their stead, Lourdes will install a pair of hologic breast tomosynthesis 3D mammography units, which provide sharp images with better detail, greater patient comfort and clearer images of lesions. The new equipment will improve the speed and efficiency of exams, help Lourdes detect breast cancer earlier reduce the number of patient biopsies performed.

MERCY HOUSE OF THE SOUTHERN TIER
$140,000

Mercy House of the Southern Tier provides a home and primary care for people with terminal illnesses whose families cannot care for them at home, or who don’t have family living close by. The $140,000 grant that Hoyt made to Mercy House in 2020 supports two projects. Mercy House will use $120,000 toward expanding its kitchen, which it uses to provide home-cooked meals, seven days a week, to residents and their loved ones. Those meals create a sense of community and spare families the chore of food preparation, making a difficult time a little less stressful. Mercy House will use $20,000 to hire local professional musicians to play for residents, one-on-one in their rooms, and for their families. The music is meant to provide comfort and ease the dying process, while the payments will help musicians and the local economy, particularly during the pandemic.

PUNCH OUT PARKINSON’S
$15,000

Punch Out Parkinson’s, a nonprofit affiliate of Rock Steady Boxing Southern Tier NY, provides classes in physical exercise for people with Parkinson’s disease. The non-contact, boxing-style workouts help people with Parkinson’s feel better, both physically and emotionally. Studies also show that such exercises might help delay the progress of Parkinson’s symptoms. The COVID-19 pandemic forced Punch Out Parkinson’s to halt face-to-face classes for some time, but the group was later able to reopen, cutting class sizes in half to allow for social distancing. Thanks to a $15,000 grant from the Hoyt Foundation, Punch Out Parkinson’s could also hire more trainers and coaches, letting it offer more sessions with fewer participants in each. It also used some of the money to add more equipment as it expanded to two new spaces, provided by Deely Physical Therapy and UHS Physical Therapy.

RURAL HEALTH NETWORK OF SCNY
$131,000

The Rural Health Network (RHN) of South Central New York has worked to promote the health and wellbeing of rural people and communities since 1998. Its service area covers ten New York counties, with its primary geographic focus in Broome. RHN recently moved into new headquarters in Binghamton, uniting most of its staff in one facility. With help from a $131,000 Hoyt Foundation grant, RHN will renovate the building to provide several improvements: a handicapped-accessible restroom; a new learning center to host educational programs and community meetings; additional private office and storage space; and a new, energy-saving heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system.

SEEDS OF HOPE
$10,000

SEEDs of Hope runs a variety of programs to help students learn financial skills through interactive activities, resources and tools. In 2020, the Hoyt Foundation provided $10,000 toward a course at Binghamton High School, designed to teach financial literacy to all 12th grade students. Held twice a week in the fall 2021 and spring 2021 semesters, and developed together with Binghamton High School faculty, the class focused on activities tailored to the interests of individual students. For instance, during the section on budgeting, student created personal budgets based on their individual needs, goals and spending styles. Using games, debates and other interactive exercises, the course also covered money management, credit and loans, interest, investing, consumer operations and protections, insurance and taxes.

WSKG PUBLIC MEDIA
$145,000

WSKG Public Media serves 21 counties in New York and Pennsylvania with programming that includes news, arts, culture, history, science and more. In 2020, Hoyt provided $145,000 toward a series of major upgrades that will improve energy efficiency at WSKG’s facility in Vestal. Replacing obsolete equipment that has been limping along for years with spot repairs, the project will provide both immediate and long-term energy savings. WSKG plans to reinvest those savings in new arts programming.

YWCA OF BINGHAMTON AND BROOME COUNTY
$30,000

The ENCOREplus program at the YWCA of Binghamton and Broome County educates low-income women, both urban and rural, about breast and cervical health, including the importance of early cancer detection. It also provides free services such as transportation to and from medical offices, childcare, appointment reminders, health care navigation and medical referrals. In 2020, the YWCA set a goal of helping 1,2000 women receive mammogram, based on its outreach, education, and advocacy. The Hoyt Foundation supported that work with a $30,000 grant.

**An additional $108,050 was given to numerous Broome County Non-profits for COVID Relief.

top of page