Fall 2025
Project: Stipend for legal staff of LISO ($1000)
Group: LISO Legal Immigration Services of Olympia
Description: LISO provides free or very low-cost legal immigratio services to individuals from our 5-county area who are detained at the NW ICE* Processing Center in Tacoma (*U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency).
Project: South Puget Sound 2025-26 Mattress & Lumber Buy ($1000)
Group: Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP)-So. Puget Sound WA Chapter
Description: SHP builds and delivers beds for kids, ages 3-17, in Thurston County who do not have their own.
Project: Lead with Dignity: Immigrant Women’s Leadership Circles of Thurston County ($700)
Group: Women in Dignity School (WDS)
Description: WDS is a grassroots non-profit based that empowers immigrant, refugee, and marginalized women through leadership development, cultural connection, and community organization. WDS is the first chapter established in the U.S., after the original chapter in Mali, West Africa.
Project: Magic Curtain Morning at OFT ($500)
Group: Olympia Family Theater
Description: Magic Curtain Morning is an intro to theater, theater etiquette, and theater magic for pre-k and up. The original productions explore themes such as kindness, acceptance of self and others, community, and friendship.
Project: Art Therapy ($500)
Group: New Horizons Community – Quixote Village
Description: Art & music supplies for art therapy classes for residents of Quixote Village housing community. These therapies are designed to build community, promote healing, and uplift the voices of individuals transitioning out of homelessness.
Project: Weirdo Collage ($300)
Group: Community Print
Description: Weirdo Collage is a monthly free shared art-making experiences where the public are welcome. The sessions provide space, tools, supplies, and skill-sharing for anyone. The supportive atmosphere fosters collaboration, conversation, community engagement, and joy.
courtesy WA State Historical Society
Spring 2025
Project: climate leadership regional support training ($1350)
Group: Salish Sea Action Collective
Description: Started in 2024 and based in Thurston County, SSAC moves people to action around climate change and regional collaboration in the Pacific NW. Funding from CSF will support their free training and education in movement building and community participation by expert trainers.
Project: equipment for community resilience ($750)
Group: SWONA (SouthWest Olympia Neighborhood Association)
Description: SWONA is a volunteer-led, grassroots organization that works to build the social fabric and resilience of the SouthWest Olympia neighborhood. This CSF grant enables SWONA to purchase supplies for their Building Community Resilience: Grassroots Emergency Preparedness & Neighborhood Connection project. They are also developing a Neighborhood Gleaning Project and a Community Garden Box Program.
Project: re-establishing farm in new location $1000)
Group: Haki Farmers Collective
Description: The Haki Farmers Collective is comprised of small-scale, beginning Black-owned farms and value-added producers in Soutwest WA. Haki previously farmed on land in Lacey, but lost their lease and need to move. CSF funds aided their transition to their new land, enabling Haki to rent equipment, transport all resources, and purchase small equipment.
Project: capacity building technology ($400)
Group: DERT (Deschutes Estuary Restoration Team)
Description: DERT is a non-profit that works towards the health of the Deschutes watershed, particularly on the estuary. CSF’s funding will enable DERT to update their office technology so that they can further develop their public outreach and education.
Project: research local history for multi-media exhibit ($500)
Group: Art Forces for Olympia-Rafah Mural
Description: Art Forces began in 2006 with the Olympia-Rafah Mural Project. It now has offices in Olympia and Berkeley, CA. Art Forces creates projects of national and global issues that connect with their histories and relationships with the viewer. The Olympia-Rafah Mural History Project funds from CSF will aid in their research of local history on struggles for justice in Thurston County from the past 150 years. The result will be a multimedia art exhibit in a gallery space and in the parking lot fronting the mural at State & Capitol.
Fall 2024
Project: THLT Digital Toolkit
Group: Thurston Housing Land Trust
Description: The Thurston Housing Land Trust (THLT) is a 501©3 community land trust dedicated to creating and preserving permanently affordable housing and homeownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income residents in Thurston County. Their project, titled The THLT Digital Toolkit, has a main goal of expanding their outreach capacity as THLT heads into a new phase of growth.
The CSF awarded $1500 to enables the Digital Toolkit to develop a suite of enduring outreach materials and a promotional video, update our brochure, and develop photographs and social media templates.
Project: Nourish Our Civic Lives
Group: The JOLT News Organization
Description: JOLT is The Journal of Olympia, Lacey & Tumwater, publishing original local news stories every weekday, including coverage of some 90 percent of public (government) meetings held in Thurston County. JOLT a non-partisan newsroom. The CSF awarded $1500 to support the cost of JOLT’s first full-time managing editor.
Project: Retaining Wall Mural Project
Group: Nisqually Reach Nature Center
Description: The Nisqually Reach Nature Center (NRNC) is a non-profit entity, established in 1986 with a mission to promote the understanding, appreciation, and conservation of the Nisqually Estuary through education, interpretation, and community science. The NRNC is located in Olympia, WA, on the western shore of the Nisqually Delta. The Center has a long outdoor concrete retaining wall. Murals have been create on some panels. The CSF awarded $1000 to support the cost of supplies and stipend for artists to complete the remaining 3 wall panel murals.
Project: Pride Storytelling Project
Group: Window Seat Media
Description: Window Seat is a local community-based oral history and storytelling organization that works within our community to document stories and activate historical memories left out, ignored, or silenced from local history. The CSF awarded $1000 to support the Pride Storytelling Project, a branch of Window Seat’s ongoing Community Roots oral history project.
Project: Scholarships for Queer + Trans Disabled Support Group
Group: LGBTQ+ Disability Justice, Jean Madrone Lynch-Thomason
Description: This project is an in-person peer support group for queer and trans individuals who are disabled, chronically ill, or living with chronic pain. This nine-week support group focuses on building community, practical tools, and resilience to manage stress. The CSF awarded $675 to support scholarships for 3 participants.
Spring 2024
Project: South Sound Resource Guide
Group: Triceratops Technology Resources (TTP)
Description: TTP is a non-profit that provides free support for local community organizations that are held back by technology barriers. They work with local groups to provide education and help them build, fix, and enhance their ability to make a positive impact. TTP has joined a group of 12 organizations that are revitalizing the South Sound Resource Guide. This online help directory plays a critical role in connecting people in Thurston County to a wide range of services, including housing support, food security, and legal assistance for individuals who are low-income, unhoused, or in crisis. The CSF awarded $1000 to support this collaborative update of the South Sound Resource Guide.
Project: REConnect’s 2024 Events and Outreach Campaigns
Group: Restoring Earth Connection (REConnect)
Description: REConnect is a non-profit working to create a paradigm shift in our individual and collective relationship with the Earth. They work on issues of climate change, species extinction, environmental destruction and social justice at a local level. Their programs range from workshops to cultivate hope in our ability to transform environmental grief into love and action, to weaving art with endangered species education in schools, to hosting the Thurston Friends of Trees advocacy group that engages with policy and local government to protect the trees of Olympia, Tumwater, Lacey and Thurston County. This intentional span of programming addresses the range of underlying barriers to systemic disconnection and destruction of the Earth in Thurston County communities. The CSF awarded $1000 to support REConnect’s 2024 events and outreach campaigns.
Project: Summer Camp Program
Group: Thurston County Inclusion (TCI)
Description: TCI is a non-profit that brings youth with and without intellectual disabilities together to support peer connections and build relationships. TCI facilitates monthly social activities around Thurston County and eight weeks of Summer Camp annually. All of TCI’s activities are free of charge. In 2023, TCI engaged with 42 schools around Thurston County. Their programs receive strong testimony of life-changing impacts for all participating youth. TCI’s work is cultivating a generation of empowered humans with disabilities and compassionate humans without disabilities. The CSF awarded $680 to support TCI’s summer camp programming.
Project: Regional Aquatics Workshop
Group: Puget Sound Estuarium (The Estuarium)
Description: The Estuarium is a non-profit organization that promotes the health, conservation, and restoration of Puget Sound. The Estuarium relies on more than 160 community volunteers and over 40 partner organizations to provide a hub of education, advocacy, and planning for a sustainable Puget Sound. For the first time in its 35-year history, the prestigious Regional Aquatics Workshop (RAW) was held close enough for the Estuarium to attend. This national event was a rare opportunity to teach/learn aquarium sciences, medical care for animals, building & sustaining enclosures – and a range of topics that are challenging without collaborative learning and networking. Our Estuarium is a vibrant and mighty organization that serves many valuable roles in our communities. The CSF awarded $660 to support the Estuarium’s need for the lead aquarist to participate in RAW.
Project: Refugee Job Fair
Group: Multicultual Service Center of South Sound (MCSCSS)
Description: Multicultural Service Center of South Sound (MCSCSS) is a non-profit that exists to create a welcoming and inclusive community for individuals and organizations in the South Sound that serve immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. MCSCSS provides English classes, job skill training, and citizenship resources. MCSCSS hosted their first job fair on May 25th! The job fair provided childcare, translators, and create resumes for the attendees. They plan to host these job fairs quarterly. The CSF awarded $1150 to support the job fair.
Project: Mapping Regional Wildlife Connectivity
Group: Vanessa LaValle
Description: Mapping Regional Wildlife Connectivity is a project being coordinated by TESC’s Masters of Environmental Studies alum, Vanessa LaValle. Vanessa conducted her Master’s thesis on the remaining Legacy Forests in Capitol State Forest. She’s continuing her work after graduation to gather existing and new data about wildlife habitat and connectivity in Thurston County. She’s creating GIS maps of this data and providing the information to the Thurston County Board of Commissioners and other organizations, as they advocate for Dept. of Natural Resources to stop plans to cut remaining stands of Legacy Forests in Thurston County. The CSF awarded $500 to support the acquisition and management of software to create and disseminate this data.
Project: Incentive Hep C Testing
Group: Olympia Bupe Clinic
Description: Incentivizing Hep C Testing is a project coordinated by Staff of the Olympia Bupe Clinic. This program was previously funded by the WA Dept. of Health but the state funds are no longer available. This program provides free Hep C, as well as STI & HIV, testing and free Hep C treatment. The Bupe Clinic is currently relying on funding allocated for other programs to allow staff to provide Hep C services while they’re in the field, working on other (funded) testing and outreach. Currently, they lack the funds to offer small gift cards to incentivize Hep C testing. Without these incentives, Hep C testing is significantly declining. The CSF awarded $1000 to provide incentives for testing.
For all Grants Awarded from 1989-present, check out our list.
thurstoncsf.org 