The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A FOUNDATION catering to inner-city residents wants to award $3000 to $10,000 to people with projects that make a difference in those communities.

Robert Turnquest, chairman of the Over-the-Hill Community Development Foundation, said his team wants to revitalise the areas and improve them.

“We want to do this by really empowering community developers who are on the ground making a difference,” he told reporters during an event yesterday. “The main way we try to empower these community developers is through our grant making programme. So in the Over-the-Hill community development foundation we want to award small grants of $3000 to $10,000 to anybody who has a project or initiative in the area that’s going to make a difference.”

Keira Beneby, Karissa Moss and Lincoln Deal are the other board members of the foundation. Mr Turnquest said the foundation has three grant cycles per year. He said the board wants to partner with others who are interested in community development.

“We have a grant application that can be accessed online on our website,” he said. “On the grant application it lays out all of the criteria but it’s really simple, any Bahamian, citizen or resident, 18 years or older that has a passion for community development in the Over-the-Hill area is invited to apply, so you just have to download the grant application and you submit it by email to the foundation.”

“We have six pillars of community development. Among those six pillars are the following: social empowerment, economic empowerment, youth and elderly empowerment, green technology, smart technology and rejuvenation. As a foundation, we want to support anybody who is making a difference based on any of those six pillars.”

Mr Turnquest said the organisation initially received a donation of $100k to launch the foundation, as well as an additional $10k donation.

“Those were the anchor donations that the foundation received and so the majority of that funding is allocated toward the grant making process for the communities in the Over-the-Hill area,” he said.