In the News – Page 2 – Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro

Cambodian Cultural Center helps preserve heritage in Greensboro

Kabrina Shamburger on July 22, 2024

Americans around the country will pause to celebrate Independence Day.

They’ll attend community events, host backyard barbecues with friends, and watch brightly-colored fireworks explode in the evening sky. Our ancestors came from different cultures, different countries and different backgrounds. While we collectively celebrate being Americans, we still try to preserve our cultural heritage, and one group in the Piedmont is working to do that in several ways.

The coconut dance is a folk dance often performed during Cambodian wedding ceremonies. On this day, it’s in celebration of the Lunar New Year with children from the Cambodian Cultural Center located in Greensboro.

“It was founded in 2012 in order to help preserve [Cambodian] cultural heritage,” says Treasurer An Strickland. “We offer programs such as arts and also community efforts and leadership and mentorship programs with our youth.” Strickland says it’s important to teach young Cambodian Americans the traditional arts, language and history of Cambodia.

In return, they help older Cambodian immigrants and refugees. “The programs that we offer are the traditional arts as far as dance culture,” she says. “We also do Cambodian literacy programs as well and a lot of community efforts to help our elderly and non-English speaking residents.”

Nearly 300,000 Cambodians escaped conflict and genocide in their homeland in the 1970s and sought refuge in the United States.

Many settled in Greensboro in 1982, and in 1986, they purchased land for Wat Greensboro, a Buddhist Center on Liberty Road in Greensboro.

The Cambodian Cultural Center has offices nearby. It relies on volunteers, but the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro helps through community grant programs.

“The community foundation has helped enhance our program itself as far as our cultural dance programs as well as showcasing our culture itself. We’ve offered cooking classes. They’ve been able to assist us with that, and we’re going to be starting a traditional classical music class as well,” says Strickland.

In addition, CCC offers community assistance with vegetable giveaways and vaccine clinics. If you want to learn more or if you would like to volunteer your time, visit https://www.cccofnc.org/

Triad Adult and Pediatric Medicine provides access to healthcare for uninsured

Kabrina Shamburger on May 20, 2024

Health care isn’t cheap; sometimes even if you have medical insurance; but one agency in the Piedmont is making care available regardless of insurance coverage or financial status.

Triad Adult and Pediatric Medicine provides medical services at six locations in Guilford County thanks in part to help from a community foundation.

Chief Financial Officer Danielle Cole says, “we are a federally qualified health center. We do preventative medicine, wellness checks, immunizations, acute care.”

That may sound like every medical office, but Cole says what makes her organization unique is it cares for all patients, even the uninsured and those who cannot afford to pay out of pocket. The money comes from the Tri-County Health Fund administered through the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro.

“We consider ourselves to be a safety net provider,” says Cole. “So a lot of times if a person is uninsured or they don’t have insurance or the thought is ‘I have a limited amount of income and that needs to go towards gas or food.’ I’m not going to go and get care until it’s a really bad situation, and a lot of times I’m going to end up in the emergency room. Now I have more debt. I have a huge bill, and now I’ve bogged down that system with something that I could have gone to the doctor for and probably been treated and not had to create that effect.”

Women to Women Period Power Initiative

Kabrina Shamburger on April 9, 2024

Students at all Guilford County Schools traditional high schools now have access to free period products, thanks to the Period Power initiative by the Diaper Bank of North Carolina.

The initiative’s expansion into Guilford County Schools was made possible by a grant from the Women to Women endowment at the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro.

According to the National Library of Medicine, period poverty can be defined as “the lack of access to safe and hygienic menstrual products during monthly periods and inaccessibility to basic sanitation services or facilities as well as menstrual hygiene education.” One in 5 teens in the United States have struggled to afford period products or were not able to purchase them at all — Period Power aims to alleviate that burden.

The Diaper Bank of North Carolina first implemented Period Power initiatives in Durham Public Schools in 2014, but has since expanded to districts across the state, including large districts like Orange County Schools, New Hanover County Schools, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. Today, the initiative serves more than 300 public schools across the state.

After the Diaper Bank of North Carolina received the $50,000 grant from Women to Women, they immediately began brainstorming how to implement these programs in Guilford County Schools. In addition to providing pads, tampons, and liners, Period Power also offers leggings, underwear, and shorts.

This lack of access to menstrual products causes some menstruating teens to miss school. More than 4 in 5 students in the United States have either missed class time or know someone who missed class time because they did not have access to period products.

YMCA of Greensboro President and CEO Rhonda Anderson Appointed to YMCA of the USA National Board of Directors

Kabrina Shamburger on March 13, 2024

Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro Board member, Rhonda Anderson, President and Chief Operating Officer of the YMCA of Greensboro, has been selected to serve on the YMCA of the USA National Board of Directors. Anderson is one of five newly appointed board members who will contribute to the organization’s mission of providing national resources for the 2,600 Ys across the country.

With an impressive background in leadership and experience in both the nonprofit and corporate sectors, Anderson brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the board. She joined the YMCA of Greensboro in February 2020, after serving as the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of the YMCA of Greater Charlotte for two and a half years and the President and Chief Operating Officer of The Community YMCA in Red Bank, N.J. for five years. Prior to her work with the Y, Anderson held several leadership positions within national brands including Johnson & Johnson and Pearson.

Greensboro Housing Loan Fund aims to increase the city’s affordable housing stock

Kabrina Shamburger on February 2, 2024

A new multi-million-dollar loan program for developers aims to increase the number of affordable housing units in Greensboro. The recently launched Greensboro Housing Loan Fund is a public-private partnership that’s been years in the making.

In 2016, a comprehensive study showed that more than 40,000 of the city’s housing units were cost-burdened or unaffordable — families paying more than a third of their income on housing. Four years later, recommendations for a loan fund made their way into the city’s 10-year housing plan: Housing GSO.

Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro President Walker Sanders says the fund targets local developers, incentivizing them to build more workforce units for people who make below the per capita income — teachers, firefighters, police officers — and are unable to afford market-rate units.

“The way communities are addressing those needs is to build into market rate developments affordable rents,” says Sanders. “An example would be a developer wants to build a project with 400 units. They can access this fund with say, they build 300 units at market rate, and 100 of them below market rate. So, it would really be a mixed income housing complex.”

Sanders says the money comes from several sources — the city of Greensboro, Community Foundation, financial institutions, and others — with roughly $21 million launched last month, and a goal to raise an additional $11.5 million. Sanders says there’s a need for some 20,000 new affordable units and that number is likely to grow.