The close of each year offers a chance to reflect on the impact our annual grant making has had on the communities we serve. Here’s a small handful of highlights from 2025’s Foundation grants:

• From January to August, 2025, Bethel Church Food Pantry served 801 households totaling 2,410 individuals, including 294 children. The program supports the food needs of these community members, as well as offering them meaningful opportunities for social connection. One pantry guest summarized the impact of the Food Pantry this way: the food sustains them physically, and the connection is a tremendous help emotionally. Another expressed gratitude to the Food Pantry team, saying, “At Bethel’s Food Pantry, I don’t feel like a burden on society.”

• Wiltse Elementary celebrated “Multicultural May” to showcase the rich diversity within its school community. The initiative brought together students and families from different cultural backgrounds, fostering understanding and empathy to bridge divides. As Japnoor, one of Wiltse’s students, expressed in a thank-you card: “It was fun and interesting for our students to share their traditions and culture. [Your] support helped make our school feel even more welcoming, diverse, and awesome.”

• DB Foundation for Health Research organized a series of vibrant Memory Cafés across the South Okanagan Similkameen. These gatherings used music, storytelling, dance, theatre, crafts, and inter-generational activities to provide vital support for people living with cognitive decline or dementia, along with their families and caregivers. Guided by Participatory Action Research principles, the initiative has laid a strong foundation for creating more dementia-friendly communities throughout the region.

We thank each of these organizations, and the many others supported through our grant making in 2025, for helping us move closer to achieving our vision of a more healthy, caring, inclusive and thriving South Okanagan Similkameen.