Serving Nucla, Naturita, Norwood & Surrounding Areas
WEST END

Trust announces annual Community Grants; 12 awarded

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The West End Pay It Forward Trust (WEPIFT), a local endowment fund supporting community development in the West End of Montrose County, has recently awarded its annual Community Grants. The trust’s board hosted a grantee celebration party along with Citizens State Bank in December to honor the 2024 Community Grant recipients. 

In this grant cycle, $20,500 was invested back into the community through 12 different local organizations. Of the total awarded, Citizens State Bank donated $6,000. Representatives of the West End Pay It Forward Trust said they were excited to be able to provide these financial resources to the West End communities. 

The 2024 Community Grant recipients are as follows: Paradox Community Center, for their office remodel to better insulate for a boost in efficiency, cut costs and improve services; the Pinhead Institute, for STEM programming in Naturita and Nucla; Tri-County Health Network, for school-based dental services for youth in the West End Public Schools District through the Skippy Central Program; Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, to cover the cost of mailing books to children; Uncompahgre Combined Clinics, for the Neighbor-to-Neighbor Program to reduce financial barriers for UMC patients; West End Visitors Center/Nucla-Naturita Area Chamber of Commerce, for general operating funds; Unaweep Tabeguache Scenic and Historic Byway Council, for general operating funds to support marketing and maintenance of the byway; Montrose West Recreation, to go toward their youth and adult recreational activities; West End Theatre Collaborative, for a traveling theatre company to come to the West End to curate an immersive theatre experience for area youth; True North Youth Program, to help fund the weekly Friday out-of-school program; Basin Clinic, to help support the prescription program; San Miguel Resource Center, to support the West End domestic violence/sexual assault victim advocate position; and Paradox Cycle, for purchase of more mountain bikes to be used by the participants of the Mustang Outdoor Recreation Program.

Since 2019, Citizens State Bank has partnered with WEPIFT and has contributed $30,000 total toward the WEPIFT Community Grants. WEPIFT was established in 2013 and operates independently with support as a designated fund of the Telluride Foundation. WEPIFT made its first Community Grant in 2018 to Colt Care, a daycare established and operated by West End Public Schools, in the amount of $2,000. Since then, WEPIFT has granted $94,400 in total to nonprofit organizations serving the West End.  

“With every Community Grant Cycle, I am more and more impressed by the organizations committed to serving our community. These organizations do so much with so little, and I am so grateful that WEPIFT exists to support them in their missions of enriching the lives of West End citizens,” said Sara Bachman, WEPIFT President. 

Currently WEPIFT’s board is comprised of Bachman, Jane Thompson, Erin Jones, Doylene Garvey, Troy Masters, Barb Olander and Sarah Carlisle. WEPIFT’s mission is to create a self-sustaining endowment to support the West End, available for generations to come. Anyone who would like to support WEPIFT may easily do so by mailing a check to WEPIFT at PO Box 171, Naturita, CO  81422, or by emailing www.westendpayitforward.org/donate. WEPIFT encourages donors to consider a passive, reoccurring monthly donation for the largest impact.