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NATCHEZ — Sparklight, a broadband communications provider, recently awarded a $1,000 grant to Natchez Children’s Services through the company’s Charitable Giving Fund.

Twenty-eight non-profit organizations across the company’s 24-state footprint received grants totaling more than $110,000 during the company’s most recent award period.

An advocacy center for children that provides a supportive environment where children who have witnessed a crime or have been subject to sexual or physical abuse can receive rehabilitative therapy, referrals, and advocacy services in the pursuit of healing and justice. The center plans to use the grant to produce visual displays that raise awareness of National Child Abuse Prevention Month in April.

“Through this project, each of the five counties that we serve will have a visual display representing how child abuse has affected their area and the prevalence of child abuse in their community,” said Natchez Executive Director Catherine McPhate. “This project will bring light and awareness to the issue of child abuse and then, hopefully, prevention throughout our area.”

The Charitable Giving Fund, which annually awards nearly $250,000 in grants to local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations served by the Cable One family of brands (Sparklight, Fidelity Communications, Hargray, ValuNet Fiber and CableAmerica), concentrates support in the following priority areas:

• Education and Digital Literacy

• Food Insecurity

• Community Development

Nonprofit organizations have the opportunity to apply for a grant during open application periods each spring and fall. Applications for spring 2023 grants will open between April 1-30, 2023.

The Charitable Giving Fund is an extension of the company’s existing corporate social responsibility efforts, which include:

• Supporting national organizations dedicated to advancing education and diversity, including the Emma Bowen Foundation and the National Diversity Council.

• Supporting the mission of Special Olympics, which provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports, as well as health, arts, and leadership, and advocacy programs for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

• Planting trees through the Arbor Day Foundation on behalf of customers who switch to paperless billing. By the end of 2022, the company planted 120,000 trees in its markets and national forests.

• Supporting the mission of Keep America Beautiful in cleaning up and beautifying communities across the U.S.

• Addressing food insecurity across its footprint through the donation of more than 46 tons of food and nearly $400,000 since 2018.

For more information about the Sparklight Charitable Giving Fund, visit www.sparklight.com/charitablegiving.