Update: July 2018
The Nancy Small Memorial Fund has had a very active year so far, but this may be the last year for operation of the Fund, which provides small grants to support public native-plant gardens in southwest Michigan.
In 2018 the Fund has supported eight native-plant projects, with five of the projects already completed and three more scheduled for this fall. The five completed projects include First United Methodist Church in Kalamazoo, Mattawan Later Elementary School, Northglade Montessori School in Kalamazoo, Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery, and Kellogg Forest in Augusta. Yet to be completed are plantings at Indian Lake Elementary School in Vicksburg, Bronson Lakeview Hospital in Paw Paw, and Jericho Town Garden in Kalamazoo’s Edison Neighborhood.
Tom Small established the Fund in 2014 to commemorate his wife Nancy, who died in 2009. All the money comes from sales of Using Native Plants to Restore Community, the book he and Nancy began and Tom completed and published in 2011.
The Fund has provided support for a wide variety of plantings: El Sol Elementary School in Kalamazoo, Pierce Cedar Creek Institute, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Sherman Lake YMCA, Peace House in Kalamazoo, a small pocket park in the Vine Neighborhood of Kalamazoo, North Shore Elementary School in South Haven, a public garden maintained by Kalamazoo Junior Girls on Kalamazoo Avenue, Montessori School on Howard Street in Kalamazoo (two grants), Confections with Convictions in Kalamazoo, Henderson Park in Kalamazoo, and Martin Luther King Park in Kalamazoo. Almost all of the grants were for $500.
Additional proposals under review at this time are include ones for the Sambodh Center, a Vedanta ashram in Cooper Township, and for the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary.
The Fund also provided two grants for the making and publicizing of the film Hometown Habitat, produced by Catherine Zimmerman and Douglas Tallamy.
The Fund is now fully dispersed and applications are no longer being accepted.