Cities, solutions, and journalism were major ingredients in my father’s life. In making stories happen through this foundation, we honor that part of his legacy and add to a rising wave of interest and attention in these topics.
He’d love that!
We’re in our third year of offering journalists travel grants to do on-the-ground reporting on ways cities can work better for all their people. This year’s class of seven new grantees shows us again the wide range of urban challenges and solutions journalists are digging into with our support.
Here’s more on this year’s Neal Peirce Travel Grant winners:
- Anika Nayak went to Boston to see how mobile health clinics are addressing health disparities by bringing care to marginalized communities. (Her story has already appeared in the health news site STAT.)
- Yardain Amron will travel to Detroit to look at how demolition of blighted properties is being done in a way that recovers and reuses waste.
- Patrick Spauster will go to the Montana cities of Bozeman and Missoula to look at how they are addressing affordable housing challenges in the face of rapid growth.
- H. Jiahong Pan will look at how communities in California, Oregon, and South Dakota are moving toward zero-emission buses.
- Ashaki Ngozi Nzinga Thompson-Hall will explore how providing Black women a guaranteed income in Atlanta and Dawson, Ga., is impacting the racial wealth gap.
- Arabella Saunders will visit Syracuse, N.Y., to look at how the city tries to ensure that communities benefit when employers get big tax breaks.
- Ashli Blow will travel to Memphis, Tenn., to look at how a program helps residents save energy by weatherizing their homes.
We are receiving more grant applications each year, which we take as a sign of rising demand for help from journalists trying to tell stories that matter. Local newspapers and media outlets across the country are hurting like never before. Many of our grantees have told us that, without the funding from the Neal Peirce Foundation, their story would not happen.
We’ll be back in touch soon to share with you the stories we’re supporting as they are published in newspapers and news websites in the coming months!
All the best,
Andrea Peirce
President, The Neal Peirce Foundation