Happy New Year to our Suffield Community from your Suffield Greater Together Community Fund. To reintroduce ourselves, we are a program at the Greater Hartford Gives Foundation (formerly the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving). This program (and similar ones in twenty-eight other towns within the Foundation’s catchment area) was established in 2020 to review and recommend to the Foundation grants for 501-c3 and non-profit groups within Suffield. Since 2020, our local committee has successfully recommended thirty-five non-profit groups for grants totaling $127,000. You can look forward to reading about some of the organizations that received funding in the last round in future issues of the Observer.
Our work continues! We are expecting to open the next cycle of applications in the spring of 2026. As of January 1, we have a new name. This past year was the centennial of the Hartford Foundation and, as you may have read in the Hartford Courant, they have adopted a new name and logo, as well as strengthened their commitment to many community programs (including this one). So, our new name will be the Suffield Community Fund at the Greater Hartford Gives Foundation; for many purposes we will shorten it to the Suffield Community Fund.
We have recently completed a volunteer recruiting process to add members to our group and are pleased to announce the following new members: Mel Chafetz, Ashley Fedigan, Saanvi Nalla, Chris Nikolis and Michelle Zawawi. In the coming months, they will join us in an examination of assets and needs in our community and designing new outreach strategies in preparation for the next round of grants.
To obtain complete details about your local committee, its membership and grant history, visit Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.org website, select Greater Together Community Funds, scroll to Suffield, and review our history and most recent grant recipients. And feel free to contact us at suffield@hfpgcommunityfunds.org.