West Central Initiative is offering grants of up to $500 to communities who want to explore ways they can be more welcoming and attractive to newcomers, starting by holding a special event of their choosing during Welcoming Week!
Donor Name: West Central Initiative
State: Minnesota
County: Selected Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 07/15/2022
Size of the Grant: up to $500
Details:
West Central Initiative is partnering with Welcoming America, a national organization whose mission is to help communities become more welcoming to newcomers, immigrants, and refugees.
Need Ideas? Here you go!
- Beautification Projects
- Clean up a local park or a few neighborhood blocks, tend a community garden, paint a community mural.
- Build a new playground or “pocket park” on a lot in town.
- Community Collaboration
- Host a cooking demonstration with a local immigrant chef.
- Recognize immigrant entrepreneurs in your community during a ceremony led by town officials and business leaders.
- Host a networking event for entrepreneurs of diverse backgrounds.
- Hold a one-on-one or small-group story-sharing event, so people can meet and get a chance to personalize/better absorb someone else’s stories.
- Work with a local coffee shop to have “coffee conversations” for 30 minutes each morning for a week. Create ways to help people engage during those!
- Have an evening event featuring food with 3-minute presentations from city offices like recreation, licensing, police, firefighters, housing and economic development.
- Citizenship
- With your local guidance for in-person events in mind, consider holding a naturalization ceremony (in the U.S. Citizenship Day is September 17). Consider inviting people to recognize their citizenship anniversary.
- Host a naturalization test preparation workshop.
- Work with local government if community organizations do not have access to virtual platforms.
- Hold an information session for people who may want to learn about running for local office (school board, city, library boards, etc.)
- Arts & Culture
- Host an evening dance and games party for kids featuring music from various countries. Cake walk?
- Work with a local museum or art gallery to spotlight art by immigrant, refugee and newcomer artists through art exhibits. Hold an event at the local museum to hear from immigrants from all sorts of countries.
- Host a virtual watch party for a film that celebrates community.
- Host a community driveway chalk art competition with the theme of welcoming or building home together. Offer images of logos to include and then create a virtual display of that artwork. Or engage local manufacturers to have their new American and immigrant workers create a chalk art piece on the sidewalk leading up to the company front door.
- Work with a local immigrant or refugee artist on a piece of public art.
- Host a virtual Civic Dinner on belonging.
- Host artist workshops – attendees can learn and practice a culturally specific art technique.
- Invite the college closest to your community to help plan for future events.
Eligibility Criteria
The facility must be owned and run by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, a unit of government, or a school district.
For more information, visit West Central Initiative.
