We’re so excited to announce our 2025 Helping Today, Shaping Tomorrow Grant Winners!
This year, eleven incredible nonprofits have been selected to receive a $5,000 grant, and we couldn’t be more inspired by the work they’re doing. From supporting early education to providing basic needs, these organizations are truly strengthening the Big Bend in powerful, meaningful ways.
Thank you for championing our mission to enhance the quality of life in North Florida and for celebrating the amazing nonprofits that help our communities thrive.
Congratulations to all of this year’s recipients! Your dedication is shaping a brighter tomorrow for us all.
211 Big Bend
Bond Community Health Center
Boys & Girls Club of North Central Florida
Children’s Home Society
Family Promise of the Big Bend
Florida Impact
Little Sunshine Pantries
Lutheran Social Services
Making Light Productions
Second Harvest of the Big Bend
TallyRobotics
2-1-1 Big Bend
2-1-1 Big Bend’s mission is to strengthen our community by providing free, confidential, and 24/7 access to information, referrals, and crisis counseling. As the region’s trusted entry point to health and human services, 2-1-1 connects individuals and families across an eight-county service area, including rural communities such as Franklin, Liberty, Madison, and Taylor counties, to the support they need for stability and well-being.
The grant dollars will be used to develop and distribute educational materials that promote child development and mental health awareness to children from birth through 5th grade and their families. These materials will also be shared with partner agencies extending 2-1-1’s reach to families in need of support. These funds will also allow 2-1-1 to host a Books, Balls and Blocks event – an interactive community event where children can play with age-appropriate games and activities while parents complete free developmental screenings and receive education on developmental milestones.
Bond Community Health Center
Bond Community Health Center is a Federally Qualified Health Center that has served the Tallahassee community since 1984, providing comprehensive primary care, behavioral health, dental, and pharmacy services. Their mobile health unit extends their mission of providing quality healthcare to the underserved by bringing essential healthcare services directly to those with limited access to medical care. They offer screenings for blood pressure, glucose, diabetes, vision, colon cancer, cervical cancer, scoliosis and renal health.
Bond will use these grant dollars to enhance their marketing efforts for the mobile health unit, which operates three times a week to serve individuals facing transportation barriers. This will then directly impact the organization’s ability to reach more individuals who might otherwise remain outside the healthcare system.
Boys & Girls Club of North Central Florida
The Boys & Girls Club of North Central Florida, located in Perry, Florida, has served the community for more than 30 years. Its general goals are centered on three pillars: academic success, character and leadership development, and healthy lifestyles. The Club delivers high-quality programs for children including literacy and math interventions, character education, nutritious daily meals, and family engagement workshops.
Boys & Girls Club will use these grant dollars to strengthen its early education and basic needs programs. Purchasing additional literacy and math intervention materials for grades K-5, supporting staff training for effective small-group instruction, and hosting family literacy workshops that equip parents with tools to reinforce learning at home. This will also help expand the Club’s capacity to track student progress more effectively ensuring educational benchmarks are met.
Children’s Home Society of Florida
Children’s Home Society (CHS) provides a supportive, inclusive, and empowering environment where each child can thrive academically, socially and emotionally. Through strong community collaboration, it works to remove barriers, provide essential resources, and foster lasting success for students and families.
CHS will use the grant dollars for gas cards, bus passes, and/or grocery cards for families needing help to get to appointments. Grant dollars will also be used to fund family engagement activities, purchase developmental toys, sensory kits, books to give to families, purchase informational materials and expand its lending library of developmental toys.
Family Promise of the Big Bend
Family Promise of the Big Bend combines immediate crisis intervention with long-term support, ensuring families and veterans don’t just survive but thrive. Family Promise provides emergency shelter, transitional housing, financial literacy training, employment assistance, and ongoing case management.
Grant dollars will be used to purchase essential household items for 18 formerly homeless veterans moving into Family Promise’s newly renovated Balkin facility. This includes kitchen starter kits, bedding packages, and a household essentials supply closet helping to ensure the veterans will move into a fully functional home.
Florida Impact
Florida Impact was founded in 1979 and is committed to advancing health equity by ending hunger for all Floridians. The organization maximizes access to federal, state, local food and nutrition programs with a special focus on serving the state’s most vulnerable population.
Florida Impact will use these grant dollars for two key youth-focused initiatives: The Nutrition Club and the GEMS (Getting Empowered Matters) Youth Development Program for elementary students. The Nutrition Club will provide children with hands-on opportunities to learn about healthy eating, food preparation and smart budgeting. The GEMS Program builds on this by cultivating leadership, self-confidence, and advocacy skills among youth.
Little Sunshine Pantries
Little Sunshine Pantries (LSP) is a food security nonprofit that serves families and individuals in food insecure neighborhoods in Tallahassee. LSP established and regularly stocks 19 micro-pantries with food and hygiene supplies in Levy Park, Frenchtown, and other neighborhoods, including schools and medical centers. LSP also provides at-home food delivery to 500+ people through a referral network and has donated 70+ bus passes to reduce transportation barriers.
Grant dollars will be used to expand food purchasing and delivery, ensuring that more families living in Tallahassee’s most food-insecure neighborhoods have immediate access to healthy food. LSP will also increase the number of bus passes available to families allowing them to reach jobs/job training, education, food and healthcare.
Lutheran Social Services
Since 2021, Lutheran Social Services has been focused on the KidSafe Program which provides new child safety seats for families living at or near the poverty level, as well as vehicle safety information and assistance to improve the efficacy of child safety seats.
These grant dollars will be used to purchase high quality 3-in-1 child safety seats, 2-in-1 forward facing/belt positioning booster safety seats, and low-birth weight infant seats for low-income families in Leon and Gadsden Counties. In addition, these grant dollars will provide child safety seat check events and purchase promotional materials to impact the effective use of safety seats and help prevent the tragedy of hot car deaths.
Making Light Productions
Making Light Productions was founded in 2016 with a mission to provide the highest quality inclusive arts education to children, teens, and adults of all abilities. They believe that the arts should be accessible to everyone, regardless of disability, neurodivergence, or financial circumstances. This approach nurtures confidence, social connection, and creative expressions equipping children with tools they will carry into school, family life and the community.
Making Light will use these grant dollars to strengthen three core programs in their Musical Theatre tracks for children ages 4 – 11 years of age. These programs introduce children to theatre through age-appropriate classes and performances that build confidence, teamwork, and creative expression. Some funds will go towards instructor salaries, production costs and program materials. Making Light wants to ensure that every student has the chance to shine on stage.
Second Harvest of the Big Bend
Second Harvest of the Big Bend is the primary hunger-relief organization serving 16 counties across Florida’s Big Bend region. Second Harvest is a central hub of storage and distribution ensuring that food also reaches rural and underserved communities in our region. They work to expand access to nutritious food, strengthen partnerships, and empower communities to build resilience.
Grant dollars will be used to purchase food, maintain refrigerated and dry storage, support transportation and logistics for mobile and partner distributions, and expand child-focused programs such as School Pantry, Kids Café, and Summer Feeding.
TallyRobotics
TallyRobotics provides and promotes educational and competitive opportunities to students of all ages in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math, along with other business and technical skills, through robotics programs in The Big Bend area. TallyRobotics aims to become the Big Bend hub for K-12 Robotics Education and they are the only organization in the Big Bend offering this progression of programs from PreK-12th grade.
TallyRobotics will use the funds to purchase program and competition sets, tablets and protective cases, team t-shirts and team storage for Pre-K – 5th grade which will allow the organization to increase the number of students who have access to these programs. The materials will also be used to help other organizations or schools start their own teams and learning groups.