By Yurianna Mikolay, Executive Director
Ocean Reef Community Foundation

For the 14th year the Ocean Reef Community will come together to consolidate support for the vital Medical and Cultural Centers, Academy, Art League, ORCAT and scores of charities beyond the gate through the Conservation Association and Ocean Reef Community Foundation during the All Charities Weekend on February 11 & 12.

There are many reasons to be a part of this crucial effort, not the least of which are the thousands of lives it touches, improves and sometimes even saves in the Upper Keys, Homestead and Florida City thanks to your generosity. Since 2008, the All Charities effort has enabled the Foundation to grant more than $13 million to worthy causes in the communities the employees who make Ocean Reef’s unique way of life possible call home.

The Foundation’s Grants Committee, chaired by Janie Sims, is in the process of vetting 99 applications for 2022 grants totaling more than $3 million, and is awaiting the results of the upcoming weekend. They anticipate being able to grant only about half of what’s been requested for projects benefitting the program’s interest areas of Youth, Education, Health & Family Services and Community.

If you’re wondering how your peers on the Grants Committee make the funding decisions, check out the program priorities that guide them on the Community Grants Program Guidelines page of our website. There you’ll also find every dollar of All Charities donations accounted for with a complete record of the 2022 grants and more detailed descriptions of the resulting projects in The Link newsletter found here oceanreefcommunityfoundation.org/news-and-events, and those for all previous years are found here oceanreefcommunityfoundation.org/news-archive.