United Way of South Hampton Roads (UWSHR) is pleased to announce the awarding of over $1.8 million in grants to 16 nonprofit organizations through the Hope & Healing Fund. In the wake of the tragic November 22, 2022, mass shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, UWSHR launched the Hope & Healing Fund to foster hope and healing for the broader community impacted by this tragedy.

The Fund received an initial $1 million gift from the Wal-Mart Foundation in addition to individual and corporate gifts for a total of over $1.2 million raised. In February, UWSHR launched a request for proposals for the Hope & Healing Violence Mitigation Grants, intended to develop, implement, and assess strategies that reduce community violence through identification of programs and approaches that are innovative, targeted, and adaptable. In order to be eligible for the grant, applicants had to be a non-profit with 501(c)3 status or a fiscal sponsor, and agree to devote 25% of funded program activities to City of Chesapeake residents.

UWSHR received a total of 24 applications which were reviewed and scored by volunteers, and based on their feedback, the following 16 organizations are receiving funding:

• Blakey Weaver Counseling Center, Inc.
• Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughters
• CHIP of South Hampton Roads
• Eastern Virginia Medical School
• Healthy Chesapeake, Inc.
• HEB Foundation
• Ketchmore Kids
• League of Advocates
• Micro Nonprofit Network
• New Vision Youth Services, Inc.
• Quality of Life, Inc.
• Stop the Violence 757
• Sylver Strategies, Inc.
• Teens With a Purpose
• Virginia Hospital Research & Education Foundation
• Walk In It

The awards range from $37,500 to $54,000 for individual applications and $95,883 to $225,000 for collaborative applications. To fund the awards, $900,000 was taken from the Hope & Healing Fund and UWSHR matched those dollars with an additional $900,000 from their own funding due to the quality of the applications and the alignment with their priority focus areas of health, economic mobility and education.

“We are honored to be able to provide support to these organizations doing critical and innovative work in our community,” said Kelsey Mohring, chief marketing and strategy officer at UWSHR. “Through our coalition meetings, we’ve gotten to hear from those impacted by violence and those on the front lines working to find solutions. We hope these grants and participation in this coalition will provide the knowledge, support and capacity building we all need to make a measurable difference for our community.”

All grant recipients will be required to continue to participate in the Hope & Healing Coalition to share progress and challenges, and ultimately identify best practices that could be applied in other communities.