By Ted Phillips

Updated August 8, 2022

Read on Newsday

A Melville-based foundation has awarded $623,500 in grants to 29 Long Island nonprofits for programs and services that help support business, education, arts, environment and low-income communities, officials have announced.

The Long Island Community Foundation awarded the recipients in two rounds of competitive grants, with a third round to be made later this year. The grants ranged from $5,000 to $50,000 and went to nonprofits in seven sectors: arts and culture; community development; conservation and the environment; education; hunger and homelessness; technical assistance; and youth development.

Foundation spokeswoman Marie Smith said that while the grants go to all sizes of organizations, they can have an outsized impact on the smaller ones.

“Every grant is important, but [for] these small organizations, every penny is important to them,” Smith said.

Riverhead-based East End Arts & Humanities was awarded $25,000 to use arts to attract visitors to the town’s downtown. The nonprofit offers classes and workshops, but the grant will be used for overhead costs at its two Main Street galleries, said Diane Burke, the organization’s executive director.

The organization has two galleries downtown — one on East Main Street and the other on West Main Street. Exhibitions are split between the two locations, which work together as a “catalyst for community development,” Burke said.

“If you come to one gallery to see part of the show, we’ll tell you to take a walk a thousand feet down the block and see the rest of the exhibition,” Burke said. “As you do that, you’re walking past all the other businesses that are on Main Street.”

The galleries bring foot traffic to local businesses and provide exposure to East End-based artists, officials said.

“It’s not just about supporting the arts, it’s more about the economic values that it brings to those areas,” Smith said.

The remaining grant recipients are: Patchogue Arts Council; Usdan Center for the Creative & Performing Arts; La Fuerza Unida Community Development Corp.; Regional Plan Association; Uniondale Community Land Trust; Vision Long Island; Audubon New York — Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary; Citizens Campaign Fund for the Environment; Operation Splash.

Surfrider Foundation; Trust for Public Land; Amityville Public Library; Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County; Floyd Memorial Library; Parrish Art Museum; Project Morry; Stony Brook University School of Communication & Journalism; Community Action Southold Town.

Health & Welfare Council of Long Island; Interfaith Nutrition Network; Mid-Island Y Jewish Community Center; Wyandanch Homes & Property Development; Adelphi University Center for Nonprofit Leadership; Pro Bono Partnership; Cedarmore Corporation; Make the Road New York; Mission Be; and Sepa Mujer.