(WAUSAU)- Impact100 Greater Wausau awarded its first $100,000 Impact Grant on Monday during its Annual Awards Celebration at Monk Botanical Gardens in Wausau. The Boys and Girls Club of the Wausau Area was awarded $100,000 to build a Club Teaching Kitchen which will expand its Kid and Teen Cuisine Program.
The Boys and Girls Club was chosen from three finalists by membership majority vote. The other two finalists, Patriot K9s of Wisconsin and Rise Up Central Wisconsin, will each receive a $6,000 Merit Grant from Impact100 Greater Wausau. The grants are made possible by the 112 women who each donated at least $1,000 to Impact100 Greater Wausau this year.
Kim Larsen, Boys & Girls Club Chief Operating Officer, explained that currently, “the kids we serve are cooking in the art room – displacing one program for another.” She continued, “With the Impact Grant, the Boys & Girls Club will build a dedicated teaching kitchen and transform a garden space that will enable the Club to move the Teen Cuisine program beyond a single burner, toaster oven and rolling cart of equipment to a full-size kitchen where kids learn to work together, build relationships with community volunteers and staff, and learn to get along with people who are different from them.”
Larsen estimates that the Impact Grant will allow the Club to expand its teen and kid cuisine programming from one that serves hundreds of kids, to one that serves thousands.
Impact100 Greater Wausau is an all-volunteer women’s organization that combines $1,000 of each woman’s donation into transformative grants for nonprofits in Marathon County. At Monday’s Annual Awards Celebration, the group announced that its 2021-2022 membership goals will be 200 women which would enable the group to award at least two $100,000 grants in 2022.
Impact100 Greater Wausau was founded in 2020 and is one of two Impact100 chapters in Wisconsin. There are more than 60 Impact100 chapters worldwide; collectively, they have donated more than $80 million to their communities since 2001. For more information about Impact100 Greater Wausau, please visit its website at greaterwausau.impact100council.org.
