Hermitage High School’s athletic booster club has received $2,040 from Richmond Ford and Ford Motor Co. from a recent Drive One 4 UR School event. By test-driving a car, 102 people raised $20 apiece for the school. During the past two years, Ford has provided more than $1.3 million to high schools that have participated in the program.

The JCPenney Afterschool Fund has awarded six grants totaling $30,226 to support after-school care at the Chickahominy, Downtown, North Richmond, Patrick Henry, Shady Grove and Tuckahoe YMCAs. The money was donated by customers during Round Up Weeks at five area JCPenney stores. By rounding up a purchase to the next dollar and donating the difference to after-school programs, customers at Regency Square, Chesterfield Towne Center, South Park Mall, Virginia Center Commons and the Shops at White Oak Village combined for $5,448.14 during the October round-up and $16,122.13 year-to-date, said Kevin Kennedy, manager of the White Oaks store.

If you had to put a price on the friendship between Carole and Marcus Weinstein of Richmond and Sam Spencer, the former president of Davidson College, $2.2 million would be a good place to start. That’s the value of the Weinsteins’ recent gift to Davidson in honor of their longtime friend. The money will support several aspects of the Dean Rusk International Studies Program, which was one of the programs supported by Spencer during his tenure as president from 1968 to 1984.

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.

Marvin Hicks and Damien Maple, who participate in Richmond football programs at Hotchkiss and Blackwell community centers, moved up to the professional level as “kickoff kids” for Friday’s preseason game between the Washington Redskins and New England Patriots. They ran onto the field at FedEx Stadium to remove the kicking tee during the firstand second-half kickoffs.

Collegiate School set a record for fundraising during the past academic year, said Alex Smith, vice president for development. The K-12 independent coeducational day school received $13.8 million in donations during the 2008-09 academic year. This represents an increase of $750,000 from the previous year and the largest amount raised in a single year since the school was founded in 1915.

The number of volunteers in the Richmond region declined by 38,600 people last year as the economic downturn took its toll. Even so, a report on Volunteering in America found about 231,100 people, or 21 percent of adults, volunteered in 2008. Based on an average of 2006 and 2008 data, the number of volunteers in Richmond ranked the city 40th of 51 large cities in percentage of volunteers. The average of 34.9 volunteer hours per resident ranked 27th of 51 large cities.

The John Randolph Foundation has awarded $305,000 to 18 nonprofit organizations working on health and quality of life issues in Hopewell and the surrounding areas. Grants for health care, mental health, mental retardation, prevention or wellness went to:

• Hopewell Emergency Crew, $26,000 to help purchase two Physio-Control LifePak 12 cardiac monitors and defibrillators.

T.J. class of’59donates library chairs D2 The 1959 class of Thomas Jefferson High School has been operating for half-century on the motto, “Doing Fine Since’59.“ After the group’s recent 50th reunion, the school is feeling fine, too. Classmates presented the school a check for $4,800 to buy new chairs for the library during their “Memory Lane Tour” of the building.

Hampton University
Virginia Tech
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U.Va.
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U.Va.
George Mason
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ECPI
Cosby
JMU
L.C. Bird
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Virginia Tech
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Virginia Tech
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Virginia Tech

Twenty students from 12 local high schools recently were awarded $1,500 scholarships from the Ukrop’s Education Foundation. The additions mean 140 students will receive Ukrop’s scholarships worth a total of $210,000 during the 2009-2010 academic year. Scholarships are renewable for four years or until a bachelor’s degree is earned, as long as the student maintains an acceptable grade-point average.

Richmond’s professional ice-hockey team went out of business in late March, but the Richmond Renegades are still supplying some excitement for local charities. Founder and owner Allan B. Harvie Jr. has donated exercise equipment used by the hockey players to Virginia State University and furniture from six team apartments to the CARITAS Furniture Bank.

The Richmond Memorial Health Foundation recently awarded grants totaling $744,000 to nine organizations focused on women and children’s health; aging and Alzheimer’s disease; and nursing and health education. The foundation’s total grants this fiscal year topped $2,046,000 despite the economy, said Jeffery S. Cribbs, RMHF president. “Our investment pool has experienced some declines over the last year, as [has] everyone’s,“ he said. “Our board felt that now is not the time to curtail our gift commitment to the nonprofit community. For this year, it’s probably greater than the most recent past.“

Vote for your favorite charity on Facebook to help the organization get a share of a $3 million giveaway by Target. The 10 charities in the running include the Salvation Army, Red Cross, PTA, Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Feeding America, HandsOn America and National Park Foundation. Go to Facebook.com /Target, log in to your Facebook account and click to cast one vote per day. Voting ends tomorrow.

A soaring adoption rate for healthy dogs and cats has secured a $230,200 Lifesaving Award for the Richmond SPCA and the city’s Animal Care and Control Division from Maddie’s Fund, a national pet-rescue foundation in California founded by software executive Dave Duffield. Richmond is the fourth community nationwide to receive the Lifesaving Award.