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Half million dollars in coronavirus relief going to nonprofits from Barra Foundation

The board of the Wayne-based foundation approved grants to support arts and culture, education, health, and human services.

Stanley Glover and Chloe Perkes in rehearsal at BalletX in February.The dance company is one of the groups receiving grant money from the Barra Foundation.
Stanley Glover and Chloe Perkes in rehearsal at BalletX in February.The dance company is one of the groups receiving grant money from the Barra Foundation.Read moreMONICA HERNDON / Staff Photographer

The Barra Foundation has awarded a total of $520,000 to 115 area nonprofits for relief from the financial strains of the coronavirus pandemic.

The largest grant, $100,000, is going to the PHL COVID-19 Fund being administered by the Philadelphia Foundation to help the region’s most vulnerable populations.

Barra’s board boosted its support for Food Connect by $50,000, and has awarded five grants totaling $100,000 to recovery efforts in Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester Counties.

Additionally, Barra, based in Wayne, awarded grants of $2,500 each to 108 groups it funded previously, between 2013 and 2019. All of the grants are for general operating support.

This $520,000 round of funding, only the first expected response by the foundation to the coronavirus crisis, aims to balance “how we can act now and address some immediate needs but continue to think about the intermediate and the longer term,” said Kristina L. Wahl, Barra Foundation president.

The decision to award the $2,500 grants to previous recipients — in arts and culture, education, health and human services — was seen as a way to “reach far and wide in the community,” Wahl said. “We believe strongly in that network, and because we know them and trust them we thought it would be a way to deploy funds quickly.”