How to Get a Grant
Sources of funding that your ministry just might qualify for.
Lesley Barker
April 1, 2003
Good News Garage takes used cars, repairs them, and gives them to low-income people who have no other transportation. The ministry, based in Burlington, Vermont, grew out of a 15-month Bible study to discover what New England congregations needed and would support. Wheat Ridge Ministries (wheatridge.org) in Illinois gave the group a grant to pay for a sociological survey, and the results indicated the biggest need among the poor in rural Vermont was affordable transportation. Former chef and food service manager Hal Colston had been wondering if his idea to start a community-based garage was from the Lord. Then the group discovered the Milwaukee-based Esperanza Unida, which uses donated cars to train welfare dads to become auto mechanics. They knew they were on the right track. Good News Garage began at Ascension Lutheran Church in 1996 with a start-up grant of $35,000 from Wheat Ridge Ministries. Sponsored by Lutheran Social Services, it now has a new facility in Burlington, a staff of 24, a budget of $1.2 million, and has spawned Good News Garages in New Hampshire and Connecticut. So far 1,100 families have received cars from this ministry. A University of Vermont cost/benefit analysis showed that for 30 families who got a car from the Good News Garage, within a year the state was saving $2,000 per household in welfare related costs, and that each family was earning $3,000 more than they had a year earlier. ... Congressman Bernie Sanders twice attended town meetings where he bumped into women who had received a Good News Garage car. Their stories so impressed him that his office called Hal to see what he needed. Hal replied that the ministry needed $1 million for their new facility. Congress set aside $850,000 for the Good ...
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