The Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust recently announced its continued commitment to aid Maricopa County, Arizona foundations by awarding almost $4.3 million in grants to 29 nonprofits in the area.
The grants were awarded from May 12 through September 14 and spread the funding evenly among seven different categories of organizations: arts and culture, children healthcare and medical research, older adults, Piper Academy grants, Piper Pellows organization grant, religious organizations, and other organization.
Among the recipients of the grants will be the Summer Youth Program Fund, which received its second three-year grant of $300,000 to support summer programs for troubled youths in the area, and the Valley of the Sun United Way, which received $625,000 over three years to continue their Adopt-A-Pool-Fence program.
The Arizona State University (ASU) Foundation received the largest portion of the grant, getting $2.5 million over 60 months to allow Dr. Leland Hartwell to continue working on the Partnership for Personalized Medicine (PPM).
Hartwell, a Nobel Prize winner, was recently named to lead the PPM, which was launched by the Piper Trust in 2007 to work towards "improving the effectiveness of health care while reducing its costs, and advancing science education," according to the trust.
"Dr. Hartwell already has transformed one worldview of science, earning a 2001 Nobel Prize for insights into the genes that control cell growth," said ASU President Dr. Michael M. Crow. "ASU provides a dynamic environment that will support the type of big ideas he has to help shape health care in the coming decade."
The Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust is a private independent foundation dedicated to "changing lives and strengthening community" in Arizona’s Maricopa County. Since beginning to award grants in 2000, the trust has invested more than $250 million in local nonprofits and programs. 