The Anchorage-based Rasmuson Foundation has announced grants totaling $1.7 million to eight nonprofit organizations in support of local and statewide projects and initiatives.

Statewide awards include a grant of $185,000 to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Western Washington and Alaska to establish the first Ronald McDonald House in the state. The grant will support the opening of the facility at Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, where it will provide temporary quarters and supportive services for pregnant women who travel to ANMC to have their babies and to the parents of children from outside Anchorage who are receiving long-term treatment at the hospital.

Local awards include a grant of $215,000 to the Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation for a new dental health facility in Dillingham; a grant of $104,000 to the University of Alaska Foundation for technological renovations and enhancements at the Museum of the North on the UA Fairbanks campus; and grants of $250,000 each to the Tanaina Child Development Center for a new childcare facility at Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage and to the Anchorage Community Land Trust for the acquisition of blighted property in Mountain View.

Grants also were awarded to the Central Peninsula Health Foundation in Soldotna, which will receive $250,000 to develop supportive transitional housing for young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 who are in recovery from alcohol and substance abuse; the Juneau Housing First Collaborative, which will receive $500,000 to provide thirty-two units of permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals; and the Sitka Community Land Trust, which was awarded $234,000 for phase one of a project to build twelve owner-occupied homes and one affordable rental unit on land donated by the City and Borough of Sitka.