A one-year-old philanthropic foundation based in Hampden is helping people nationwide and in the Baltimore region to overcome alcohol dependency.
The Peter G. Dodge Foundation, headquartered in Suite 347 of the Mill Centre at 3000 Chestnut Ave., is already making its presence felt with its first round of grant funding, including one for $10,000 to Baltimore Clayworks in Mount Washington. Clayworks is teaching weekly pottery to residents of Tuerk House, a West Baltimore residential facility for men in recovery from alcohol and drug addictions.
On a weekday afternoon just before Christmas, a dozen men stood in a classroom in Tuerk House, making cups out of clay as part of Clayworks' Cups for Recovery program.
"Make sure you put your initials in the bottom of your cups," said Herb Massie, Clayworks' director of community engagement and lead teacher for community arts.
Some of the men were there for the first time; others, like Melvin, 49, of Waverly, had already been to several of the weekly pottery classes.
"I thought I was going to hate it," said Melvin, who was referred to Tuerk House in the 700 block of Ashburton Street, but never imagined that he would be working with clay as part of his addiction therapy. "I didn't think I would be able to create anything," he said. "I didn't think I had any art skill. (The class) definitely proved me wrong."
Melvin said he made a cup for his grandmother, 90.
"She was really happy about that," he said. And he was happy with the class, saying, "It's helped me stay focused and clear my mind."
Although Tuerk House is far from Baltimore Clayworks, the two nonprofit organizations have strong ties. The Peter G. Dodge Foundation, which started its second year in January, is helping to strengthen those ties, awarding a one-year grant to Baltimore Clayworks for its six-year-old clay classes at Tuerk House at a time when Clayworks had lost a prior funding source.
"That's where the Dodge Foundation comes in," said Emily Sollenberger Dobbins, Clayworks' director of development, who wrote the grant application for a year's worth of funding. Dobbins said she has spoken with foundation Executive Director Elizabeth Cairns since the grant was awarded and, "It sounds like (Cairns) wants to keep doing the funding" annually.
Cairns, a cousin and friend of foundation founder Peter Dodge, said the foundation has awarded $150,000 in grants to eight organizations nationwide. Other grantees include:
• Faces and Voices of Recovery, in Washington, partly for an educational campaign.
• McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., which is developing a series of youth-focused events aimed at preventing alcohol abuse by young people
• The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation in Minneapolis, Minn., to help offset costs for those in treatment at Hazelden's inpatient clinic.
• White Bison, Inc., in Colorado Springs, for a pilot program to help Native Americans.
• Oxford House in Silver Spring, Md. The foundation has created a loan fund that will establish four new Oxford Houses, with the fund existing in perpetuity as residents repay their loans, according to the foundation's website, http://www.pgdf.org.
• The C Three Foundation, in Fort Myers, Fla., to help defray that group's operating expenses and fund its advocacy for the Sinclair method of Alcohol Use Disorder treatment
• The Pinhead Institute, in Telluride, Colo., to pay for a laboratory-based high school internship in the field of drug or alcohol addiction.
The foundation was formed by Peter Dodge, founder and chief executive officer of Hanover Research and Information Services, Inc., a market research firm. Cairns said Dodge did not want to be interviewed for this article, calling him a "fairly private" person.
Dodge, 37, who lives in Washington and Telluride, Colo., has struggled with alcoholism and in the process of seeking treatment options has learned that "there's a lot of information out there," Cairns said. Dodge has even tried transcendental meditation, Cairns said.
She said that Dodge, a successful entrepreneur, decided to "give back" by starting the foundation. She described the foundation and its website as a clearinghouse for research about alcoholism and to give people as much information as possible on everything from treatment programs and methodology to nationwide locations for Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but without taking a position on one treatment or another.
Cairns, 39, of Hamilton, a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, and a practicing artist, said she has experience in arts administration for a philanthropist, whom she would not identify. Now, Cairns is running the foundation out of a 300-square-foot suite in the Mill Centre, with "a couple of desks" and signage on the door, and talks to Dodge regularly about foundation matters. She found out about the Mill Center from an artist who has a studio there.
The foundation office has exposed brick and "a happy feel," she said.
Cairns said she and Dodge are the only members of the foundation's board.
"As soon as you have a board, you lose some control about where you want to go," she said.
Dodge is paying for the grants and for operating expenses for the foundation, but the foundation is starting to do some fundraising and is starting to get some donations, Cairns said.
The applicants who received funding from the foundation are organizations that Cairns and Dodge knew of, she said. As a practical matter, "I invited them to apply," she said. "No one knows about us yet."
Although grants are being offered by invitation only and Cairns is targeting certain organizations, she hopes to broaden the application process.
"I really want to direct people to our website," Cairns said. She said she recently posted a list of grant initiatives on the website, "because those are areas where we're interested in receiving proposals."
Other goals of the foundation are to keep doctors up to date on current research related to alcoholism and to work with researchers on how to better match people with treatments based on factors such as genetic markers. Cairns said she hopes to attend conferences on best practices for treatment.
"I think we're going to be working more on grant initiatives, funding people to carry out the foundation's ideas," she said.
The young foundation is still finding its feet.
"We're still in the early days," Cairns said. "It's similar to starting a small business."