Community gardens, a triathlon, a spay and neutering fund, and new museum displays were all among the 25 beneficiaries of grants from the Chilkat Valley Community Foundation this year.
The foundation awarded $93,889 in grants to 25 organizations in 2025. About 100 people gathered in the lobby of the Chilkat Center on Thursday to hear more about the nonprofits and programs being funded through the foundation’s efforts during its 17th grant cycle.
The awards were split into three categories, including capital funding:
- Haines Assisted Living – $2,969 for a new call system used by residents to get the attention of staff when they need assistance.
- The Eldred Rock Lighthouse Preservation Association – $3,250 for radio room and boiler room asbestos abatement and remediation.
- Lynn Canal Food Web – $4,499 for the Henderson Community Farm.
- Haines Senior Village – $5,000 to fix crumbling sidewalks.
- Sheldon Museum – $3,500 for the purchase of five acrylic display cases for museum artifacts.
- Rural Alaska Community Action Program [RurALCAP) – $4,961 for its Haines Head Start and Parents as Teachers programs.
- Four Winds Resource Center – $4,110 to “power up” several existing programs.
Liz Landes told the audience that the Henderson Community Farm harvested more than 2,600 pounds of food during its first year of operation. She said they plan to use the grant funds to buy a cart for their tractor and a storage shed.
“We did not have a single dry square foot to store anything winter or summer out there,” Landes said. “These are huge additions to this space.”
On behalf of the Four Winds Resource Center, Shelby Flemming said many of its Mosquito Lake programs – including the Victory Garden and Chilkat Valley food hub – are flourishing but need support to keep them sustainable. The organization also plans to use the funds to increase the size of its tool library which allows community members to borrow tools they need instead of buying them.
“The most popular item is still the logsplitter,” Fleming said. “My personal favorite is the drywall lift, because that’s where I’m at with my house.”
The second category of awards went to special projects and programs:
- Haines Animal Rescue Kennel – $4,000 to expand access to its spay and neuter program.
- Takshanuk Watershed Council – $4,300 for its snow school program.
- Haines Chamber of Commerce – $3,000 to modernize and expand its website with a community job board and a more robust business directory.
- Haines Friends of the Pool – $920 for a project to support beginning swimmers with floating swimming mats, as well as a basic inventory of disposable swim diapers.
- Jilkaat Kwaan Heritage Center – $3,250 to expand the Klukwan community garden through organizing and hosting food workshops.
- Foundation for the Chilkat Center of the Arts – $4,500 for kitchen upgrades and remodeling.
- Alaska Clean Water Advocacy (Earth Island Institute) – $1,500 for the Chilkat Challenge triathlon.
- Haines Arts Council – $4,500 for a winter workshop series.
Katrina Hotch, who spoke on behalf of the Jilkaat Kwaan Heritage Center, said the organization has been looking for ways to expand the reach of its community garden which was established in 2005.
They looked into adding classes for specific kitchen skills and certain kinds of food workshops, but Hotch said they also asked the community what else they’d like to see come from the garden and got dozens of suggestions.
“This support is going to help feed our community’s interest, help support our food security, food sovereignty and just provide that space for the community and time together,” Hotch said.
Tracy Wirak-Cassidy spoke about the success of Takshanuk Watershed Council’s snow school program which has been running since 2021. The program runs January and February, and Wirak-Cassidy said she visits every pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade class in Haines and Klukwan where the students get lessons in winter ecology, watershed science and snow science.
In February, the kids then get to go outside with the younger ones snowshoeing and the older ones going on full-day field trips.
“It’s really building this culture of safety with those students,” she said.
The Haines Arts Council, which is in its 40th year, was new to the CVCF grant awardee list. Sarah Sherban said it’s the first time the organization has applied for one of the local grants.
The arts council plans to expand on a music, art and dance one-day camp it hosted last year. That camp brought 25 different classes and workshops to more than 100 people. Those classes included double bass drumming, fiddle music, running the light board at the Chilkat Center, and a community choir.
This year, Sherban said, the council intends to have a program that runs from January through April with six-week sessions for kids and adults.
“As a mother with kids in town, I’m really excited that we’re going to be doing more with kids in the dead of winter,” she said.
The final category of awards was for operating support:
- Haines Friends of Recycling – $3,060 to support the mission of recycling and reducing waste in the Chilkat Valley.
- Chilkat Valley Preschool – $4,500 to develop a lifelong love of learning in children, and their readiness for their continued education
- Haines Hot Shots – $3,800 to support the safe, responsible use of firearms through participation on a sports team.
- Catholic Community Service – $4,000 for the Haines senior center’s hot lunch program
- Haines Huts and Trails – $4,000 to facilitate outdoor access to the Chilkat Valley.
- Haines Dolphins swim team – $3,500 to support scholarships that support their vision of providing competitive and recreational swim opportunities for the youth of the Chilkat Valley.
- KHNS – $5,000 whose mission is to inform, educate, enlighten and entertain.
- Salvation Army – $3,500 for their annual Thanksgiving and Christmas food box program.
- Alaska Avalanche Information Center – to support and promote Haines-area avalanche forecasts and education to reduce the unintentional injuries and deaths in the Chilkat Valley’s avalanche terrain.
- Southeast Alaska Independent Living – $4,000 to support their mission of inspiring personal independence by promoting options to seniors and disabled to enable them to live as active, productive citizens in our community.
Cori Stennett from Southeast Alaska Independent Living highlighted the programs SAIL has in place to empower residents to maintain their independence.
Stennett said in addition to the help they give residents in accessing programs like Medicaid, social security, in-home care and food assistance, staff also wrote about $50,000 worth of grants last year to help residents with everything from heating fuel and electricity costs, to housing and assistance with security deposits.
“They tell us what they need, we write a grant for it,” she said.
SAIL also maintains a loan closet with medical equipment.
“If you know someone, or if you ever need to borrow a piece of medical equipment, we have wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, knee scooters. Come and see us, we’re going to keep doing that,” Stennet said.
Nate Arrants also thanked the foundation for its support of Haines Huts and Trails. He highlighted the first year of managing the Tukga Hut recreational cabin.
“I thought we’d have a mellow startup and ease our way into things, but we had 160 nights of occupancy and about 500 people used the hut in its first year,” Arrants said.
That figure includes more than a dozen children under the age of five who made it up to the hut, which is about 3,200 feet up the southern side of MountTukgahgo.
Haines Huts and Trails also got a grant to fund its trail-tool library last year, which Arrants said allowed them to get a volunteer trail program running.
“That snowballed into multiple other funding opportunities and we were able to do a complete Skyline Trail rebuild,” he said. “We were able to rebuild a whole section of dilapidated boardwalk that hadn’t been touched in over 15 years.”
Arrants said he was pleased to be able to get operating support from the community foundation, which isn’t common.
“A lot of organizations don’t like supporting projects unless they’re huge sexy projects and what it really comes down to, when I think of community support, is being able to keep the organization running,” he said.