Today, the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation (WGHFF) announced a $1M challenge grant to support non-profit organizations focused on improving health, wellness, and education outcomes in Ciudad Juárez. The five-year grant will be made in annual installments of $200,000 through 2025 and will provide one dollar for every two dollars raised in the community.  Fundación Paso del Norte para la Salud y Bienestar, a sister foundation of the Paso del Norte Community Foundation, will organize and operate the grant.

This is WGHFF’s second Juárez-focused matching grant. In 2020, the Fundación concluded the foundation’s first five-year challenge grant, meeting the goal of raising $2 million in qualifying gifts and receiving $1 million from WGHFF.  More than 350 donors, 70 percent of whom were from Ciudad Juárez, helped to support the Fundación’s mission and strategic partnerships. All contributions were re-invested in local nonprofit organizations or directly in the community. 

“Our first community challenge grant to the Fundación Paso del Norte was fully matched, showing that the people of Ciudad Juárez are committed to improving the quality of life in their region,” said Woody L. Hunt, Chairman of the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation. “We believe this second matching grant will allow the Fundación to raise even more funds to support local organizations working to improve the community health and wellness.  We also hope to incentivize new donors, whose contributions will be amplified by the match.”

The Fundación leveraged WGHFF’s first matching grant to establish a network of more than 50 nonprofits in Ciudad Juárez that share fundraising, capacity building, and sustainability planning resources. It also provided grants to 35 nonprofits to support their programming and operational costs.

In the last year, the Fundación donated over $100,000 in basic medical supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) to health workers, hospitals, and clinics, providing aid to nine different institutions and over 1,800 health workers in response to the COVID pandemic. The matching grant also supported the launch of the UNIDOS PODEMOS campaign in partnership with Fundación Zaragoza, investing $50,000 to donate 3,900 primary pantry packages and 622,000 breakfasts to families affected by the pandemic and living in the poorest neighborhoods of Juárez.

The new challenge grant comes with the goal of distributing more than 40 grants to eligible non-profit organizations in Ciudad Juárez over the next five years.

“We are honored and humbled by the continued support and investment from the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation,” said Karen Yarza, executive director of the Fundación Paso Del Norte. “We have succeeded in meeting the goals set by their challenge grant every year, and we are confident the community will again rise to the challenge and ensure our children, families, and neighbors continue to benefit from the improved programming, and initiatives made possible by this investment.”

To find out more about the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation’s $1 million challenge grant or to donate, please visit: www.fundacionpdn.org/donate.