The Grant Assessment Committee has been busy the last several months reviewing the virtual flood of emergency grant requests due to the Coronavirus outbreak and its impacts on our community. However, despite the flurry of emergency grant activity we, at Lake Toxaway Charities, have not forgotten our commitment to you and our supported agencies to review routine grant requests.
Your Grant Assessment Committee met on May 26th to discuss our 2020 grant requests. Several grant requests were formally approved in the meeting, but others required additional due diligence of site visits, eight of which were completed just last week. Each agency request stands on its own merit each year, and we “say no” if a new agency does not meet our mission’s criteria. We have, in fact, reduced funding and/or turned down current agencies based on our site visit and/or their current description of need.
Due to the tremendous response from our donors, a RECORD $642,000 was granted this June, which is a 72% increase over the record 2019 grant amount of $372,000. Lake Toxaway Charities now serves total of 51 agencies. In addition to these routine grants, our donors also raised an incredible $175,000 in “emergency grant” funding. Thus far, $75,500 in emergency COVID grants have been approved in 2020 to provide for the critical needs of our neighbors: food, shelter, and prescription medications. The remainder, is being held in reserve to supply additional emergency grants for food and shelter and medical needs through Christmas due to the unprecedented need in Transylvania County in the wake of the Coronavirus.
We have highlighted a few of the approved 2020 grants below. We look forward to sharing more with you in our next e-blast. We take your trust in us seriously. Thank you for your generosity. Your donations go to very good causes and support many deserving people in our county.
2020 Grant Approvals

Tiger Impact Group (TIG)
The Tiger Impact Group (TIG) first formed in 2017 as a collaboration between Lake Toxaway Charities, the Transylvania County Schools Educational Foundation (TCSEF) and Transylvania County Schools to provide a variety of supportive programs and services in the Rosman district schools. Lake Toxaway Charities designs TIG programs in conjunction with teachers, administrators, and community members…

Weekday Children’s Program of Brevard’s First United Methodist Church
Weekday Children’s Program of Brevard’s First United Methodist Church’s mission is to provide a quality Christian child care program for children ages 1-5. Lake Toxaway Charities awarded a grant in 2020 to finance a new playground. The playground is accessible to all people and children of the community.

Rosman High School
Lake Toxaway Charities awarded a grant in 2020 to Rosman High School. The grant will provide for band equipment, a livestock/plant trailer, and a new parental involvement program. Rosman High School is a beneficiary of our Tiger Impact Group (TIG) initiative.

Mountain Roots
Mountain Roots is a local educational non-profit that provides discovery and outdoor learning experiences for youth, teens and their families in Transylvania County. It operates 50 weeks a year providing programs for every local public elementary school and summer day camps for children, as well as leadership and group development retreats and workshops for community…

T.C. Henderson
Lake Toxaway Charities approved a grant to T.C. Henderson in 2020. The grant will help children add books to their home libraries or start to build one. The grant will also supply reading and math materials for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. T.C. is a beneficiary of our Tiger Impact Group (TIG) initiative.

Neighbors in Ministry – Rise and Shine
Lake Toxaway Charities approved a grant for the year 2020 for Rise and Shine. The grant will provide after school programs, specifically funding an after school site coordinator and college interns to assist. The grant will also fund STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) related field trips and STEAM education. An allowance will be…

Rosman Elementary School
Lake Toxaway Charities approved a grant to Rosman Elementary School for the 2020 year. The grant will provide for an upgraded media center, Muddy Sneakers programming, new programming in the wake of COVID 19, and new library chairs. Rosman Elementary School is a beneficiary of our Tiger Impact Group (TIG) initiative.

Earthshine Mountain Programs
Earthshine Mountain Programs provides a learning environment for wildlife conservation. Lake Toxaway Charities awarded a grant in 2020 to fund two projects aimed at involving children in conservation efforts.

Quebec Community Club
Lake Toxaway Charities awarded a grant in 2020 to replace gravel in the club’s parking lot and upgrade two bathrooms.

Transylvania County Schools Educational Foundation (TCSEF)
The Transylvania County Schools Educational Foundation’s mission is to promote, develop, and encourage public and private support of the Transylvania County Schools. Lake Toxaway Charities awarded a grant in 2020 in support of the TCSEF. Transylvania County Schools Educational Foundation is grateful for the partnership and support they have received from Lake Toxaway Charities. Our partnership began in June of 2019 and the…

Young Life Camp
Young Life is a group of staff and volunteers committed to building relationships with youth to earn their trust. Young Life employs active ministries that reach out to students at Brevard and Rosman High Schools, together with WyldLife for children at Brevard and Rosman Middle Schools and Brevard Academy. In addition, YoungLives targets teen-aged mothers in Transylvania County. Lake Toxaway Charities partners…

Blue Ridge Community Health Services
Blue Ridge Community Health Services is a nonprofit, federally qualified health center, providing quality healthcare, including dental and mental, accessible and affordable for all. In 2020, Lake Toxaway Charities approved a grant to make a single payment on a loan.

Brevard College
Lake Toxaway Charities is pleased to announce that it recently awarded the college with a grant for the 2020/21 academic year to make an education attainable for a Transylvania County student receiving financial aid. The first Lake Toxaway Charities student scholarship dedicated to a Brevard College student was created in 1990, beginning a decades-long partnership…

Isaac Homes Youth Shelter
The mission of the Isaac Homes Youth Shelter is to provide basic needs and build capacity for a supervised drop-in center for homeless youth. Lake Toxaway Charities is pleased to support this mission with a grant awarded in 2020.

Mediation Center
The mission of the Mediation Center is to create opportunity from conflict. The Mediation Center provides conflict resolution services to help people move through difficult and stressful times and resolve conflict without violence and abuse. For adults, they provide community and family mediation services to resolve disputes between neighbors, family members, co-workers, and others. Lake Toxaway Charities approved a $5,000 grant request in 2020 to help with these efforts.

Hunger Coalition of Transylvania County
The generous grants that we have received from Lake Toxaway Charities have helped underwrite our general budget each year. The additional funds and Covid-related grants that we’ve received during these past few months could thus be used directly for providing foods to the increased numbers of people who have benefited from our distributions.

4 H Club of Transylvania County
4-H is a community of young people across America, learning leadership, citizenship, and life skills while pursuing a variety of interests. Programs are led by Youth Development Extension Agents and qualified volunteers. A new 4-H club, named Backwoods Broadheads 4-H Archery Club,was organized at the Lake Toxaway Community Center last year to provide young people…

Mountain School of Strings
Mountain School of Strings is a non-profit music organization committed to providing affordable after-school strings classes for all who are interested. Their curriculum challenges students to play music from classical to traditional mountain tunes. Research indicates that music education gives students an edge when it comes to self-esteem, personal motivation and even academic success. Mountain…

The Salvation Army
In 2020, Lake Toxaway Charities approved a grant request to the Salvation Army for $15,000 to continue providing heating oil, propane, food, rent and utilities for needy families in Transylvania County.

New Adventure Learning Center
New Adventure Learning Center is a full-time child day care center that serves children of many different backgrounds and abilities in each their five classrooms. New Adventure serves 72 local area children, including 18 Pre-K students ages 4 and 5. They are a 5-star center which uses the Creative Curriculum to provide assessments, parent conferences…