Boaz & Ruth gets $15,000 grant for safety, development programs

It has been a good summer for Boaz & Ruth, sponsor of a number of programs that are rebuilding part of Highland Park while rebuilding the lives of former prisoners.

On June 30, founder Martha Rollins was invited to the White House to meet President Barack Obama and talk about her vision of a national service program called Restore Corps.

Now the organization has received a $15,000 MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award for its achievements in improving safety and spurring economic development in the Highland Park community.

In partnership with the Richmond Police Department and Richmond Sheriff's Office, Boaz & Ruth programs helped reduce crime by 37 percent in the area in the last year, Rollins said.

The organization helps people released from prison to gain work skills and reconnect to the community through its nonprofit businesses and classes.

Since it began in 2002, Boaz & Ruth has opened a furniture store, thrift boutique, restaurant, catering business, furniturerestoration business and construction business in a four-block area of Meadowbridge Road where more than half of the commercial buildings were empty.

"Who better to restore a neighborhood than the people who helped to destroy it?" Rollins asked. "When people come out of prison, in essence they're opening businesses in the empty, boarded-up buildings that were left that way because of crime."

She describes her motivation simply.

"I just have a passion for connecting the wealth of society with the needs of society. I believe we both have needs and both have gifts, whether rich or poor," Rollins said.

"I could see business as a catalyst for connection."

. . .

The Adult Career Development Center, Hilliard House and St. Joseph's Villa have gotten back-to-school grants from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation.

The grants support new programs, equipment, materials or software for library or literacy programs. The Adult Career Development Center received $3,000; Hilliard House, $2,080; and St. Joseph's Villa, $1,500.

Dollar General's Literacy Foundation has made grants to 1,101 organizations in 2009.

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or . Send notices for Notable Gifts to .