The Jackson EMC Foundation Board of Directors awarded a total of $47,050 in grants during their September meeting, including $43,550 to organizations and $3,500 to an individual.

Organizational Grant Recipients:

$6,300 to Barnabas Ministries, a Gwinnett County faith-based organization providing encouragement and support to men while in prison and upon their release, to cover one year's rent for office facilities and a transitional house.  To help reduce recidivism and help prisoners successfully return to their families and society, Barnabas Ministries provides temporary support, counseling, life skills training and temporary housing.

$5,000 to the Cobb Health Care Center, a Madison County long-term and home care provider, to purchase pedal wheelchairs and tilt recliners not covered by Medicaid that will help wheelchair-bound patients regain some independent mobility.  Pedal wheelchairs allow patients without hand and arm function to move about.  Tilt recliners allow patients confined to beds to move from bed to chair.

$15,000 to the Gwinnett Children's Shelter to assist with Project PACTS (Parents And Children Together Succeed), a program the helps parents develop and improve their parenting skills, helps teenagers better understand parenting issues and family dynamics, and helps decrease the cycle of family violence.

$2,250 to the Jefferson Lions Club to match funds raised by the club for its vision program, which provides eye exams and new eyeglasses for people in need, referred by Jackson County's Department of Children and Family Services. While the club budgeted $1,500 in 2005 for the program, it provided $2,700 in exams and glasses.

$15,000 to Rainbow Village, a Gwinnett County organization that provides transitional housing for the homeless that helps them become self-sufficient, to provide case management services, along with supplies for and repairs to the housing. The case manager works with each family to set and achieve realistic goals that will allow them to break the cycle of homelessness.

Individual Grant Recipient:

$3,500 to an elderly woman who needed assistance to replace the HVAC system in her 35-year-old home.