Welcome to Impact Taos 2021!

We invite you to join us in grantmaking to support the organizations selected for funding by our Core Grants Committee, published in this catalog for fundholders.

Your participation will allow us to significantly increase our grantmaking through this cycle, and this year, more than ever, we are hoping for your partnership in supporting these organizations though a grant from your fund. All contributing Funds will be individually recognized in the grantee award letter.

In this catalog you will see a summary of the applicant organizations’ proposals. Please contact Helen to learn more about any given proposal.

Click Here and download a form for your requests. Upon completing the form, please scan and return it to Helen Forte, hforte@taoscf.org or if you are in town, drop it in the TCF Mail slot located on the bottom of the main office door.

Scroll down to see the Impact Taos 2021 Catalog.

*Unless Otherwise Indicated, Grant Requests are for Core Operating Support.

HEALTH

  1. Mountain Home Healthcare

MHHC serves over 750 patients directly in Taos, Rio Arriba, Colfax counties, and Taos and Picuris Pueblos every year. Additional informal caregiver counseling, education and support from our team serves nearly 4000 people. Our plan is to continue bringing compassionate home health and hospice care to people in our community, providing equitable services for indigent care, and strengthening our network of medical facilities through collaborative programming. This funding will also augment our Dr. Larry Schreiber Hospice Fund for indigent care.

  1. Golden Willow Retreat

Golden Willow Retreat (GWR), works within the Taos community to guide people through trauma and loss, and assist with normalizing the grieving process. Through one on one meetings, work in schools, weekly Zoom grief groups (during Covid19 safety regulations), businesses and community organizations, GWR staff strive to ensure individuals experiencing loss and trauma, to know grief is acceptable and a natural way to heal – and that there are resources available to help them through their difficult times.

  1. Holy Cross Hospital Cancer Support Services

Clients are served from early in their cancer diagnosis up to a year after their last treatment. CSS helps with transportation and lodging for treatments; funds for massage, acupuncture, and other alternative therapies, and individual and/or group support. CSS, a program of Holy Cross Medical Center since 2012, offers non-clinical support to improve quality of life for people facing cancer as well as their families and caregivers.

EDUCATION

  1. Bridges Project for Education

Bridges’ vision is to help our clients access postsecondary education to enhance their ability to improve their lives and that of their families, and by extension contribute positively to the broader economy and social welfare of our community. Students will have accurate information, early enough, and will develop both vision and agency to actively choose an appropriate postsecondary path. Students who choose to pursue a formal postsecondary education path will complete the essential steps to access a school that’s affordable and a good fit. Those who enroll will complete their program and contribute back to the Taos community.

  1. Taos School Zone

Taos School Zone brings together, facilitates, and coordinates the efforts of nonprofits, parents, teachers, employers and caregivers to produce measurably better outcomes for Taos children, their families, and our community. We promote understand of existing programs, identify gaps, and help create the best goals and strategies to fill educational, service, and enrichment gaps. TSZ intends to continue the critical family and teacher survival work we undertook during the pandemic, and begin to add back the collective impact work planned before COVID struck.

  1. Embudo Valley Tutoring Association-Free Tutoring/Mentoring Services for High Priority Students at 3 Taos County Sites

Embudo Valley Tutoring Association was founded in 2004 as a response to No Child Left Behind legislation. While EVTA’s primary focus is to assist with the development of foundational academic skills in the elementary years, tutors also provide mentoring services to guide students towards a growth mindset and to acquire executive functions. EVTA also trains tutors to deliver sequential phonetic based interventions to specifically aid children with language learning disabilities. Students are identified through collaborations with teachers, families, and administrators, using a series of priority factors.

ANIMAL WELFARE

  1. Stray Hearts

Stray Hearts provides spay/neuter services in Taos. We care for dogs brought in by Taos Animal Control. Our shelter assists other animal welfare organizations in the county and some out-of-county organizations. We provide emergency surgery when required. Our thrift store, ReTails; complete with a cat café for the enjoyment of members of our community and potential adoptions, has maintained open doors as much as possible during the pandemic. Future needs include retention of in-house Veterinary services and our new medical clinic. Furthermore, we are working towards a long-needed update to Cat ISO.

  1. Feral Feline Friends

Taos Feral Feline Friends (TFFF) is a grass-roots, all-volunteer charity devoted to supporting homeless cats and their caregivers by providing free cat food, spay/neuter and vet care for homeless cats and a shelter for homeless cats lacking human support. Founded in 2004, TFFF is the only animal welfare organization in Northern New Mexico that operates a physical shelter with rescue and adoption services, free spay/neuter, free vaccinations and caregiver assistance programs focused on feral cats.

  1. Equine Spirit Sanctuary

Since 2005, ESS is a licensed horse rescue with programs for people that include therapeutic riding, equine-assisted services, educational events and outreach. ESS is home to a herd that consists of 20 to 25 horses and several donkeys, miniature horses and a pony, all which were either rescued or unwanted. ESS works to improve the lives of horses and people through education, raising public awareness of welfare issues related to equines and the plight of the unwanted horse, while honoring the intrinsic value of horse and human relationships.

BASIC NEEDS

  1. Community Against Violence

For over 43 years, Community Against Violence (CAV) has been responding to high incidence rates of domestic and sexual violence and child and elder abuse in Taos County. CAV provides comprehensive services to survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, abuse/neglect of children, abuse/neglect of adults with disabilities and other special needs, and human trafficking. CAV provides free and confidential crisis response and emergency shelter; post-crisis advocacy, case management, counseling, support, and transitional housing; offender intervention; and education, prevention and outreach services, as well as, specialized Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) services.

  1. The Food Depot

The Food Depot’s core program focuses on ending hunger in northern New Mexico. In 2020, The Food Depot distributed 11.5 million pounds of food, enough for 9.6 million meals. The Food Depot provides over 800,000 meals per month to the most vulnerable members of its community. The Food Depot provides hunger relief through a combination of direct and indirect service programs, partnering with nonprofit organizations including food pantries, meal programs, and shelters to provide food assistance and fills gaps in hunger relief services by providing food through three direct service programs. In FY21-22, The Food Depot anticipates that the demand for hunger relief will continue at the increased levels seen in 2020, as communities slowly recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic.

  1. DreamTree Project

DTP anticipates grant funding will go towards day-to-day operating support. The Emergency Youth Shelter is open 24-7 to youth ages 12 to 17. Youth stays can range from as little as an hour to up to 90 days. The Transitional Living Project offers housing for young adults ages 16 to 24. Residents live independently in an apartment while working and/or going to school, and receive support from a case manager, help with resource navigation, and receive weekly life skills classes. DTP’s SOP team engages homeless individuals (21 years and under) provides hygiene items, food and survival gear, and shares support information with clients to improve awareness/access to resources.

  1. Taos Coalition to End Homelessness

The Taos Coalition to End Homelessness (TCEH) are the owners and operators of the Taos Men’s Shelter, offering low-barrier access to overnight shelter, food, laundry, showers, peer support and case management 365 days a year for the homeless men of Taos County, supporting our guests in coordination and cooperation with local service providers, charitable foundations, town, county, and community members. If clients continue to meet weekly with our case manager, they are given up to 120 days at the shelter.

  1. HEART of Taos

HEART of Taos (HEART) opened HEART House on December 3, 2019 to provide emergency and transitional housing for women and children experiencing homelessness in Taos. Due to COVID-19, HEART transitioned from HEART House to a four room hotel program. As of December 31, 2020, HEART added an additional 12 emergency shelter hotel rooms that it is currently overseeing in partnership with DreamTree Project through CARES Act Funding. Free case management, food, and other basic needs are provided to all households. HEART is focused on homelessness prevention by providing the immediate need of housing combined with critical support services; the guests are encouraged to participate in free case management to review their long-term stabilization.

COMMUNITY ADVOCACY

  1. Friends of the Questa Public Library

The Questa Public Library is one of the Village’s success stories. Thanks to a $580,000 allocation by the NM state legislature in 2019, construction of an addition to the existing library building will be completed in April of this year. The new structure will provide additional space for the library to commence post-COVID activities, including school visits, STEAM Fun Fridays that complement the QISD’s four-day school week, a Summer Reading Program, free computer access and classes for adults, an archival area preserving the area’s agricultural and mining history, a space for local artists to display their work, and a gathering place for teens to study and socialize. In order to continue to meet these needs, the library seeks financial support to furnish the new addition and update the original building’s interior.

  1. Santa Fe Dreamers- Taos Virtual Legal Clinics

Santa Fe Dreamers Projects provides much needed legal representation to undocumented immigrants and their families, at zero cost to the clients. We cover the entire gamut of immigration legal work from DACA to Green Cards to U Visa, deportation defense, release from detention, and asylum. Santa Fe Dreamers Project will continue to partner with Jose Gonzales of Sin Fronteras and Las Cumbres’ Santuario de Corazon program, to provide 6 virtual legal clinics a year to the residents of Taos County. We will provide an average of 10 consultations per clinic for a total of 60 consultations for the year. In this same one-year period we will also legal represent 15 qualifying clients from these clinics through the completion of their cases.

  1. Taos Entrepreneurial Network

TEN provides professional services to individuals in need of guidance in starting or growing their business. The primary services include one-on-one consultation with entrepreneurs and small business owners to match their needs with local, state, and federal resources. Additionally, TEN facilitates networking by hosting monthly events that provide a platform for Taos area businesses to get exposure, expand their professional network, and learn from seasoned business owners how to navigate the local market and economy through the “Entrepreneurial Journey” featured speaker sessions. We have one part time contract employee to handle the individual business support, as well as organize and facilitate the small group and large group meetings. Operational funding will allow the organization to maintain this position.

ENVIRONMENT

  1. I.R.E

A.I.R.E. continues the age-old agricultural traditions in northern New Mexico around resilient agriculture, acequia irrigation and maintenance, and traditional knowledge systems. We work to build food sufficiency for the community, connect youth to agriculture, and build capacity for northern New Mexico farmers and ranchers. A mobile delivery approach offers an effective way to extend our reach. A.I.R.E. will purchase a food truck, enabling a significant expansion of our farm to school meals program, to include meals served after school, during summer, and outdoors and operating as a ‘mobile farmer’s market’, providing no-cost and subsidized CSA shares and items for purchase with EBT and Double Up Food Bucks, and nutritional / agricultural education to families in remote areas of the county.

  1. Taos Valley Acequia Association

TVAA’s mission is to ensure the long-term sustainability of our traditional agricultural community by protecting water rights and preserving and strengthening the acequia system.

As a hub for systems change strategies and community education at the grassroots level, we advocate for the continued use and maintenance of acequias as sustainable, ecologically sound and democratic methods of farming, as well as a part of our living communal heritage that supports traditional methods of food production and preparation, ecosystem sustainability, ancestral learning, and oral customs, by educating, informing, advising, and assisting acequias and their parciantes, about their water rights, the laws and regulations pertaining to their water rights, and the historical uses, agreements, and customs related to acequias and water use and conservation.

  1. Amigos Bravos

During 2021 Amigos Bravos will build on 32 years of success and work on the following projects in Taos County: restoring and advocating for protection of high priority wetlands in the Carson National Forests; revitalizing the Rio Fernando, providing technical assistance to community members who call with water-related concerns; monitoring river otters, and engaging with hundreds of youth and community members through presentations, trainings, and projects. To accomplish our mission of protecting and restoring the waters of New Mexico, we pursue projects within these three goals: Restore Watershed Health, Hold Polluters Accountable, and Developing Water Stewardship for the Future.

YOUTH

  1. Rocky Mountain Youth Corps

RMYC provides comprehensive life skills and workforce development training to hundreds of youth and young adults across northern New Mexico every year. We work with partners at all levels of government, private businesses, and community organizations to deliver our training curriculum. Corps members earn a stipend, professional certifications and an academic scholarship while they complete a wealth of conservation, recreation historic preservation, and environmental education projects.

  1. Twirl- Pop Up Summer of Play

Twirl provides Taos kids and families with community-wide opportunities to play and learn that are inspiring, creative and nurturing, and that honor and support a child’s fundamental need to play. Twirl has proven itself to be a reliable community resource for families and the agencies supporting them for 14 years. Our programs bring our whole community out to play and create together, elevating the benefits of play to everyone. Twirl will host a Pop-Up Summer of Play event at various locations in Taos County that will engage children and families in community play and creativity projects, with all necessary COVID protocols in place.

  1. James Episcopal Church- Common Grounds

Common Grounds is a Taos Teen Co-Op and Café. We started working together in 2016, after 4 teen suicides in less than 6 months to support friends and peers in Taos who are homeless or sofa surfers. We will have the ability for them to do laundry and take a shower. We’ll have a give & take closet and a kid friend food pantry, too. We’re a Café, with a menu to be open to the public breakfast and lunch items. In the afternoon and evenings, we’ll have a “menu of activities” for teens. Things like poetry slams, game rooms, snacks, study areas, music, meditation and art rooms: all with approved and trained chaperones on site. We’re still raising $ to renovate for ADA compatibility and safety issues. In the meantime, we have hosted outreach activities since 2016. We even have our own radio show! This particular grant ask is geared toward realizing the completion of our fundraising and getting the ADA and code compliance renovations complete, purchasing the food truck, and starting the regular operation of our outreach activities.

ARTS AND CULTURE

  1. Paseo project

The Paseo Project works at the intersection of arts and community. We believe in the potential for art and artists to transform communities, and we work in partnership with arts organizations, educators, nonprofits, and community leaders to forward this vision. Staff and board members of The Paseo Project participate in a wide variety of community projects and economic development initiatives, ensuring that an arts-based, supportive, inclusive lens is used in community-level problem solving. Beginning in 2020, we have turned our attention strongly to diversity, equity, and inclusion, joining a year-long international training program called OF/BY/FOR ALL, and working to better-understand how to truly serve and work in partnership with all members of our community, especially those historically underserved by or underrepresented in arts and cultural endeavors.

  1. Questa Creative Council

The Questa Creative Council strengthens our community through arts, culture, history, and education. We do this by enhancing opportunities to bring together artists, artisans, cultural creatives, and community members. We help build an attractive destination for visitors and an economically-beneficial future for our residents while nurturing, sustaining or reviving traditional and contemporary creative pursuits. Pre-pandemic, we were at a crucial stage for our non-profit; outgrowing the ability of our board members to pitch in on multiple fronts, especially on core operating functions. We are seeking a Council Coordinator to manage and coordinate our multiple needs, and fulfilling that mission piecemeal until such a person can be recruited. QCC’s emphasis is on developing the organization’s professionalism, capacity, efficiency and economic sustainability.

  1. Taos Center for the Arts

TCA creates, delivers, and shares arts with Taos communities and our region. TCA has navigated into 2021 as an arts institution flexible and forward thinking in connecting audiences to film, radio, visual arts and performance. Its offerings extend the range from virtual cinema and exhibitions to drive-in jazz concerts. Its spaces and staffing facilitate and expand other arts in our community through partnerships, shared spaces and, foremost in this new era, through an openness to vital collaborations that elevate voices in the community — from individual artists to students in a mentorship program, from open call drive-in art projection to workshops for the youngest among us.

  1. SOMOS

Since 1983, SOMOS has encouraged creativity and craft development in the literary arts for all ages. Through quality workshops, readings, conferences, and festivals we showcase writers, storytellers, and poets from diverse backgrounds. We provide classroom and performance space and sell used books and works by local authors. Core support will fund staff and overhead expenses necessary to provide our annual programming and operate our Bookshop. Annual programs include the Young Writers Program, Taos Writers Conference, Writers Showcase, Poetry and Prose Months, Storytelling Festival, Taos Poet Laureateship and Bookshop.

TIER 2

  • Mindful Frontiers- Recipe for Wellness, Mindfulness in the Classroom
  • Not Forgotten Outreach-VetCorps. Agricultural Resurgence for Veterans and Military Families
  • Taos County Chamber of Commerce, Information Kiosk
  • Taos immigrant Allies- Bilingual Navigator and outreach Program
  • Big Brothers Big Sisters Mountain Region– Bigs with Badges
  • Western Environmental Law Center
  • Taos Children’s Theatre
  • MAS Comunidad
  • Wholly Rags
  • Taos Jazz Bebop Society
  • The Couse Foundation
  • Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails-Taos County
  • Lions Club of Taos -Adult Vision Project
  • Taos Art Museum at Fechin House
  • Vista Grande High School-Marketing and Communications Revamp
  • Talpa Community Center
  • Cancer Foundation of New Mexico- Meals that Heal
  • 100% Community-Mural Project
  • James Food Pantry- Delivery Driver Stipend Fund
  • Taos Historic Museums
  • San Antonio del Rio Colorado Historic Preservation
  • Alianza Agri-Cultura de Taos
  • Field Institute of Taos
  • Las Cumbres Community Services-Taos County Grandparents Raising Grandchildren- Emergency Financial Assistance.
  • Harwood Museum of Art- Harwood Equity and Engagement Initiative