Special and Urgent Needs (SUN) - Irene Recovery Grants

From the moment that Tropical Storm Irene struck, Vermont’s nonprofits have been at the forefront of the state’s recovery process, helping residents who were affected by the storm and serving as key partners in the rebuilding of their towns; many of these organizations worked around the clock to meet a surge in demand for their services even as they recovered from damage to their own facilities. 

The Community Foundation recognized that in order to provide relief to residents in the most affected parts of the state, many nonprofits that served those areas were going to need emergency funding to maintain or increase their services and repair the damage they had sustained. The Foundation established the Special and Urgent Needs (SUN) – Irene Recovery Fund for this purpose, modeled after the Foundation’s original SUN Fund, which for six years has provided quick grants to nonprofits for unanticipated needs.

The fund’s first grants were awarded the week of October 2, roughly one month after the storm and two weeks after applications were made available. Foundation staff began to realize that some of the most critical on-the-ground work was increasingly being administered by local community relief funds and programs that offered financial assistance to individuals and families affected by the storm and these programs were subsequently allowed to apply for funding as well. Thanks to the generosity of donors from across Vermont and beyond, the SUN–Irene Recovery Fund collected over $420,000.