Bigelow Foundation Helps Build New Wellstone Center

The F. R. Bigelow Foundation, St. Paul, has helped finance completion of the Neighborhood House Association's capital campaign to build the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center for Community Building. The foundation's $500,000 grant to Neighborhood House was one of several grants awarded by Bigelow to support local capital campaigns.

Neighborhood House has served residents of the West Side of St. Paul since the 1890s with counseling, advocacy, cultural empowerment groups, and programs that meet basic needs. The Bigelow grant supports Neighborhood House's strategic plan to raze its current facilities and build the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center for Community Building. The 93,000-square-foot facility will provide meeting space for cultural, artistic, educational, performance, recreational and civic activities for people of all backgrounds.

With its latest grants, the foundation also awarded capital grants to:

• Catholic Charities ($250,000) to help finance the completion of the Help & Hope from the Heart Campaign. The $20.5 million campaign will fund a variety of initiatives including a homeless youth program, supportive housing for the working poor, and facility improvements to several affordable housing sites.
     
• Wilderness Inquiry ($75,000) to purchase and renovate office, classroom,and equipment storage space and renovate housing for interns and instructors during the first phase of its capital campaign.

In total, the F. R. Bigelow Foundation's board approved 23 grants totaling $1,799,372 in Nov. 2003. For a complete list of grants, visit the foundation's Web site.

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