The Massachusetts Avenue Project was awarded the 2008 $100,000 grant at the Final Vote Event on April 29th, where four area nonprofits competed head-to-head at Buffalo’s Academy for Visual & Performing Arts.

The $100,000 grant will be used to support the creation of MAP’s Community Food Resource and Micro Enterprise Center on Buffalo’s West Side. The Center will increase West Side residents’ access to affordable nutritious food and increase their capacity to earn a living through business and job training. The Center will house the Rise Up Cafe and catering business; a weekly youth dinner co-op; group meeting space; a commercial kitchen; and MAP’s offices. Close to half of the residents in this area live below the poverty line. MAP’s Center will become a hub of activity around food, work and community. It will function in tandem with MAP’s Mobile Market, which launched in February 2008. MAP seeks funding to purchase the Russ’s Pastries building on West Ferry as the location of its Center. This would not only provide a permanent home for MAP two years after a fire destroyed our previous offices, but would also act as an economic revitalization catalyst for the Grant Street commercial corridor. MAP will serve 50 residents per day through this renovated facility.

“This bi-annual voting event is an exciting way to practice philanthropy across generations. By pooling members’ contributions and focusing on high-impact projects, the fund is able to make a major difference in our community,” said Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker, president / CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo.

The 21st Century Fund membership consists of a wide variety of philanthropic-minded Western New Yorkers, including students from area schools. The Fund pools the contributions of individuals and organizations that then participate in the selection of the grant recipient. Past winners include Art on Wheels, the Buffalo Zoo, Buffalo State College’s Waterfront Maritime Center, the Darwin Martin House and WNED. This was the first year that the grant recipient was chosen in just one round of voting.

The four 2008 finalists were:

• Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens
• Buffalo Micro Parks
• Massachusetts Avenue Project
• West Village Renaissance Group