This May, Delta Community Credit Union completed the distribution of grants to all of its 2024 Philanthropic Fund recipients. Georgia’s largest credit union recently distributed $22,500 of total awards to four area nonprofits to support their education programs that address various needs in the community. This month, Essential2Life, Inc. was awarded $7,500 and Cobb Collaborative, Inc., College AIM and the Center Helping Obesity In Children End Successfully, Inc. (C.H.O.I.C.E.S.) were each awarded $5,000. 

Essential2Life, a nonprofit that provides students with leadership and life skills through various programs, will allocate its grant towards its Youth Financial Literacy Initiative, which encourages students to set life and financial goals by providing them with the basics of money management. 

“This grant will be used to help our young leaders learn and develop positive financial literacy skills to help them as they manage their careers,” said Darrick Graham, Essential2Life’s Executive Director. “Students will participate in workforce development workshops ensuring that they are prepared to manage their personal funds through life.”

College AIM, a nonprofit that provides students with expert college and financial aid coaching, will use its grant to support its College Access Program, which helps high school students get into technical, associate and bachelor’s degree programs.

Cobb Collaborative, Inc., will use its grant to encourage reading. The nonprofit will use the funds to expand its monthly Mayor's Reading Club project. The organization creates monthly reading kits, which contain a book, a hands-on activity that families can do together, an instructional insert with other ideas to support learning, and Cobb County Public Library resources. The grant will also help expand and maintain the organization’s “Little Free Libraries” across the area. 

C.H.O.I.C.E.S. is a resource center for families of children in underserved communities that are clinically diagnosed and at-risk of obesity. It will use its grant to help fund a Family Workshop Series on healthy cooking. The workshops teach children healthy food habits and how to prepare nutritious meals while teaching parents how to make healthy eating part of their budget.

“We are honored to work with each of this year’s Philanthropic Fund recipients and support their missions to improve the lives of individuals and families in metro Atlanta,” said Hank Halter, Delta Community’s CEO. “We want to extend our thanks to each group for the work they are doing to strengthen our communities in various ways, making them better places to live and work.”

 Throughout this year, Delta Community’s Philanthropic Fund invested a total of $150,000 in 20 metro Atlanta nonprofit organizations. Applications for the 2025 Fund will open July 1, 2024.