Taste of the Nation - Toledo > Grant Recipients

Aurora House

The Aurora Project offers homeless women and their children the time and resources needed to prepare for their move to permanent housing and self-sufficiency. Approximately 41 women and 31 children benefit from Aurora’s programs each year. We also operate a state-licensed Child Development Center that provides loving care for up to 63 infants, toddlers, pre-school and school-age children.

Grants provided by Share Our Strength are a blessing to public service organizations like Aurora because they allow these organizations to use funds for overhead expenses. Aurora plans to use its SOS grant to pay for insurance, to recruit personnel for the childcare center, and to maintain the agency’s van.

For information on how you can donate money or time to the Aurora Project, contact Denise Fox, 419/244-3200.

Toledo Day Nursery

Toledo Day Nursery (TDN), was founded in 1871 and our mission, to enhance each child’s educational, social, emotional and physical development by providing high quality affordable child care, has remained constant for 130 years. Our program quality is exemplified by our accreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

TDN provides a comprehensive program that includes hearing, speech/language, vision, dental and developmental screenings as necessary for all children enrolled. A mental health component aids children with emotional, behavioral or anger issues.

For information to make a donation of money or time, please contact Pat Scheuer, Executive Director, at 243-2627.

Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank

The Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank is a non-profit organization established in 1984. Our mission is to enable other community organizations to end hunger. We strive to maximize community resources by effectively obtaining and distributing food through a food collection and distribution system

Over the past 17 years, the Food Bank has distributed over 43 million pounds of food and grocery products to qualified member agencies. Currently, the Food Bank serves more than 330 non-profit agencies in an 8 county area that includes Defiance, Fulton, Henry, Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky, Williams and Wood counties. By collecting donations from local and national companies, the Food Bank is able to act as a clearinghouse for food and grocery products that are distributed to member agencies. Qualified member agencies include emergency food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, rehabilitation centers, special programs for the elderly, group homes, holiday food basket programs and non-profit day care centers.

The Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank is affiliated with America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s largest domestic hunger relief organization and the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Bank’s, the state food bank network.

For information, call 419/242-5000.

Toledo GROWs

Toledo GROWs, an outreach program of the Toledo Botanical Gardens, focuses on empowering people of all ages, as well as those living on fixed incomes, in Toledo’s urban areas. We use urban vegetable gardening to address the root causes of poverty and hunger, teach the simple techniques of tilling soil, and encourage harvesting and sharing nutritional produce.

Toledo GROWs currently has 34 gardens, including children’s gardens and social service/rehabilitation gardens and more than 600 volunteer gardeners, 200 of them children.

Thanks to the generous support of Share Our Strength, Toledo GROWs was able to expand programs in nutrition education, cooking, and economic development. Funding was also used to support program staffing, as well as providing basic garden services such as acquiring plants, composting and tilling.

For volunteer information, call Toledo Botanical Gardens at 419/936-2986.