Alaskan Leader Announces 2013 Grantees

Jay Barrett/KMXT
Alaskan Leader Fisheries Foundation announced its annual round of grant recipients this week. The foundation was created by Alaskan Leader Fisheries, and has operations out of Kodiak and in Bristol Bay, where they focus their giving.
In a release, Linda Kozak said that this year 13 grants were given in Kodiak, including such organizations as the Brother Francis Shelter, Humane Society, the Women’s Resource and Crisis Center and the Kodiak High School track and field team, which used the funds to help with hosting the Brian Young Invitational track and field meet, held last month.
In Bristol Bay, the foundation gave 22 grants in 11 different communities, from Dillingham, Togiak and Naknek, to Aleknagik, Egegik, and Manokatak, and on the Alaska Peninsula in Port Heiden.
Kozak declined to say how much Alaskan Leader gave to each cause.
We’ve got a list of all the communities and what the grant money will be used for, after the jump.

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ALASKAN LEADER FISHERIES FOUNDATION
KODIAK AND BRISTOL BAY
FUNDED PROJECTS/GROUPS FOR 2013

KODIAK 13

Alutiiq Tribe of Old Harbor
Funds will be used for the Nuniaq Summer Youth Program.

Brother Francis Shelter
The grant will be used for food and supplies for feeding those who need the services of the shelter.

Humane Society of Kodiak
Funds will be used to assist capable elderly or handicapped Kodiak citizens with having and caring for pets. Research shows that companion pets assist individuals to live a healthier and better quality of life.

Kodiak Christian School
The grant will enhance the Accelerated Reading Program by purchasing additional books for the established classroom libraries. Access to online computerized comprehension quizzes will also be purchased to challenge the students and assist teachers with reading evaluations.

Kodiak High School Track & Field Team
Funds were used to put on the “Brian Young Invitational” track and field meet. Athletes from all over the state were flown to Kodiak for competition during Crab Festival.

Kodiak High School Varsity/Junior Varsity Baseball Teams
Funds will be used to replace very old and worn out team uniforms. This year the district cut 20% from the sports programs and travel costs increased by 25%. Purchasing new uniforms this year would be impossible without some grant funding.

Kodiak Historical Society/Baranov Museum
The grant is for design and printing costs for a 2014 temporary exhibit on the impact of the 1964 earthquake and tsunami in Kodiak. The exhibit will open in March, which will mark the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Good Friday earthquake and tsunami, an event that changed Kodiak forever. Primary costs are for research, graphic design and printing costs.

Kodiak Kingfishers Swim Club
The Club needs to add and replace equipment with the increased interest and added number of participants in the program. This year’s needs include kickboards, pull buoys, bungies and timing equipment.

Kodiak Soil and Water Conservation District
Funding would be used to help support the Kodiak Envirothon. The purpose of the Envirothon is to increase students’ knowledge of natural resource issues and ecological sustainability principles through practical studies in their own communities.

Kodiak Women’s Resource and Crisis Pregnancy Center
Funds will pay for building maintenance, office supplies, shelter groceries, personal hygiene items for clients, as well as utilities and other building expenses.

St. Mary’s Catholic School
Tuition assistance for families would be provided by the grant. Tuition assistance is based upon need, not academic proficiency or religious affiliation.

St. Paul Preschool
Funds will be used to purchase much needed furniture and educational equipment for students ages 3-5.

Threshold Services
Funds will be used for materials and labor to build stands for receiving recyclables, which will go into the new building.

BRISTOL BAY 22 in 11 communities

Aleknagik

Aleknagik Traditional Council
Funding would purchase athletic jerseys for the local school that currently has none.

Aleknagik School
Funding to be used for the purchase of supplies for Yupik students who participate in the Yupik Studies program (wolf skins, beaver skins, beads, thread, cloth, leather).

Dillingham

Dillingham Imagination Library
Funds would be used to purchase books and literacy material to distribute to Bristol Bay villages without early childhood libraries.

Dillingham Elementary School
Funds would be used to purchase multicultural instruments, boomwhackers, lummi sticks, and hand drums for the music program.

Dillingham City School District
Funds would be used to purchase several sewing machines, fabric, dishes and utensils for use in teaching life skills to groups of students in the school.

Dillingham City School District
Funds would be used to purchase supplies need to teach each unit of a program that brings math core content to the classroom with cultural applications. The class picks berries, makes jam and Eskimo ice cream, takes a field trip to egg island, brings in local artist to create clay patterns and fire them.

Dillingham Elementary School
Funding would be used to buy multiple copies of children’s books with Alaska to use in the first through fifth grade

Dillingham Middle School- “Get in the Reading Flow”- For the Love of Books
Funding would be used to support a reading effort in the middle school; there is no school library so this teacher has taken it upon herself to start a classroom library, a book club and summer reading program. Books would be purchased, equipment for tracking check-outs and supplies.

Friends of the Library
Funds would be used to update the library’s Alaska non-fiction collection by purchasing newly published and newly released books and DVD’s about Alaska. Much of the library’s Alaska collection is extremely outdated or worn.

Egegik

Egegik Tribal Council
Funding is needed for hiring someone to teach fish processing and net mending/processing.

Ekwok

Ekwok Village Council
Funding would be used to purchase food for a community cleanup; supplies for potluck, door prizes

King Salmon

King Salmon Tribe
Funding would be used to replace flooring in the King Salmon Civic Center; they have contributed $5,000 and this request would be the remainder needed.

Southwest Alaska Vocational & Education Center
Funding would be used to purchase for student and teacher use, 12 of the latest iPad or Samusung tablets which will enable use of the new TERRA internet at SAVEC.

Levelock

Levelock Village Council
Funds would be used to provide 1 week of instruction to Levelock youth in the self defense art of Brazilian Jui-jitsu.

Manokotak

Manokotak Nunaniq School
Funds would be used to provide one week of instruction to Manokotak youth in the self-defense art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Manokotak Nunaniq School Snowshoe Club
Funds would be used to purchase a fleet of snowshoes for the school community and club to use. They will be offered for check out and used for group classes and outings.

Naknek

Bristol Bay School
Contribution would be used to offer the Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Rural Alaska Program to Bristol Bay School students.

Port Heiden

Native Village of Port Heiden
Funds will be used to purchase 3 hydroponic planting units with solutions and seed. Plants will be set up at tribal building and the tribe will support the set up costs and maintenance costs. Vegetables will be sold to the community.

Native Village of Port Heiden
Funds will be used to purchase a swing set to put outside the community center; the tribe would be sharing the cost.

Togiak

Togiak Volunteer Fire Dept.
Funds will be used to purchase much needed equipment for the fire trucks. (firefighters gloves, entry tools, axes, shovels/picks, sledge hammers).

Togiak Search and Rescue
Funds will be used to purchase communication and GPS equipment for the volunteer team as well as to pre-pay some gas and oil for searches.

Twin Hills

Twin Hills Village Council
Funds will be used to get new gym equipment and supplies for a cultural project as well as an office panel system at the council office to provide privacy for the bookkeeper.