116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Linn County accepting annual Witwer grant applications
Applicants have until Dec. 9 to apply on the county’s website
Linn County is now accepting applications for its annual Witwer Trust Grants.
The grants, from the Witwer Trust Fund, aim to give money to organizations that benefit Linn County residents and were selected through the annual competitive grant process. Supervisors received more than $286,000 in grant requests for the $80,000 available.
The deadlines for applications is Dec. 9 and decisions are typically made in weeks after the deadline. Applications can be submitted on the Linn County website.
The annual Witwer Trust cycle begins Nov. 1 each year. The trust was established by Weaver Witwer, a prominent Cedar Rapids grocer and landowner. Witwer, who died in 1979, owned and operated a food processing plant, local farms and what became known as the Me Too grocery stores.
Applicants will have to submit their plan on how funding will be used for a certain project the applicant proposes.
Grant applications are scored based on potential for long-term impact, how it serves at-risk populations and how it can address an emerging need within the Linn County community.
The Linn County Board of Supervisors awarded $80,000 in last year’s grant cycle to 19 area nonprofits:
- African American Museum of Iowa: $5,000 for “We are Here to Educate!”
- Alburnett Lions Club: $3,000 for community sign
- Area Substance Abuse Council: $3,500 for youth residential updates
- Catherine McAuley Center: $3,000 for Offering Hope and Opportunity to Women in Crisis
- Cedar Rapids Community School Foundation: $1,650 for McKinley Outdoor Learning Lab
- Cedar Rapids Public Library Foundation: $2,500 for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
- Central City Senior Dining: $5,000 for walk-in cooler repairs
- Community Health Free Clinic: $3,000 for dental services
- Families Helping Families of Iowa: $2,500 for providing shoes for children in foster care
- Kids First Law Center: $3,500 for Restorative justice prevents youth violence
- Mount Mercy University Jump Start Academy: $4,500 for Jr. WNBA and Jr. NBA
- Peer Action Disability Support: $3,500 for ADA celebration
- Refugee Immigrant Association and Hoover Community School: $7,000 for Linn County Integration Project for Emerging Communities
- Riverview Center: $5,000 for Sexual assault/abuse crisis intervention project
- Tanager Place: $5,000 for 2022 Freedom Schools
- The Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success Expansion Program: $9,000 for program support — setting goals, planting seeds and sowing dreams (gardening and conservation)
- Troy Mills Historical Society: $5,000 for UV protection for museum windows
- Willis Dady Homeless Services: $5,000 for homelessness prevention and street outreach
- Young Parents Network Incorporated: $3,350 for Eastern Iowa Diaper Bank
Comments: (319) 398-8255; gage.miskimen@thegazette.com
Sara Marino gathers diapers for a client during the Eastern Iowa Diaper Bank's distribution day in Cedar Rapids on March 4, 2021. The organization is a collaboration between the Eastern Iowa Health Center and the Young Parents Network (YPN). The diaper bank distributed more than 600,000 diapers to financially stressed parents in 2020. YPN received a $3,350 Witwer grant last year for the diaper bank. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
Linn County logo
Charity Tyler, executive director of the Cedar Rapids Public Library Foundation, shows some of the books that are part of the Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program in the Cedar Rapids Public Library's downtown location. The foundation received a $2,500 for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library last year. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
Young students take part in Mount Mercy University's Jump Start program. The program received a $4,500 Witwer grant for the program last year. (Mount Mercy University)
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