The Boys & Girls Clubs of Thurston County is getting $3 million for a permanent Yelm clubhouse, and it’s not alone — nonprofits across Thurston and Grays Harbor counties just landed some of the largest individual grants the Seattle-based charitable foundation has ever made. The money is part of a final round of transformational grants, each ranging from $1 million to $5 million, awarded to 42 nonprofits as the Medina Foundation spends down its remaining resources before shutting its doors in 2027.
The foundation, which has operated in western Washington for nearly 80 years, says it has nearly reached its goal of spending down its remaining resources, according to the Nisqually Valley News. The foundation plans to give away nearly $110 million in 2026 altogether, a figure that includes earlier grant rounds made throughout the year, the paper reports. The foundation’s separate exit grants offered recipients flexibility, while these transformational grants were project-specific.
Local Nonprofits Share in the Windfall
Beyond the Yelm Boys & Girls Club project, Community Youth Services Thurston County was awarded $1.38 million to expand youth behavioral health access across the South Sound. In Grays Harbor, the YMCA received $2.6 million for its Grays Harbor Generations Transformation Project, while Coastal Harvest was awarded $1 million to strengthen rural hunger relief. The Rochester Organization of Families received $4.5 million for an effort described simply as building its future, and Garden Raised Bounty, known as GRUB, was awarded $2.15 million for a project called Raising the Barn, aimed at transforming the organization for future farmers, leaders and community members.
Seattle-based FareStart also received $5 million in the same Tuesday grant round. Patrick D’Amelio said the investment would create employment and economic stability pathways for people facing barriers and strengthen families, businesses and the community, the paper reports. Margaret Clapp said the grants had potential for outsized regional impact and were the foundation’s largest individual grants ever, according to the same report.
A Foundation Built on Timber Money Winds Down
The Medina Foundation was founded on Christmas Eve 1947 by Norton Clapp, who worked for Weyerhaeuser, ultimately rising to president and chairman of the timber giant, and who earned a law degree at the University of Chicago. Over the decades the foundation built a focus on nonprofits supporting education, youth development and economic opportunity, as well as organizations working on housing assistance and hunger prevention, per the Nisqually Valley News…