The San Antonio Area Foundation has announced grants totaling more than $9 million in support of eight local capital projects.

The inaugural five-year grants were awarded through the John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation, which was established in 2015 to honor the late John L. Santikos with naming rights opportunities from nonprofits working in his designated areas of interest and within an eight-county region. The grants include $672,280 to the Clarity Child Guidance Center for the renovation of a regional inpatient hospital facility that treats children diagnosed with significant mental health needs; $800,000 to El Centro del Barrio (dba CentroMed) for construction of the New Family Wellness Center, the only doctor-referred health, fitness, and wellness center in Indian Creek; and $1 million to Haven for Hope of Bexar County for a welcome center that will coordinate homeless care services on the Haven for Hope campus.

Other grants include $125,000 to the City of Hondo Public Library for the installation of "Imagination Stations" in the new library's youth education center; $500,000 to the San Antonio Food Bank in support of an initiative to establish a New Braunfels Food Bank with a volunteer engagement center; $1.37 million to San Antonio Sports for a school park program that aims to convert forty-one school playgrounds into community parks for use during non-school hours; $2.5 million to the Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital Foundation to establish the area’s first children's trauma services program; and $2.3 million to the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio to equip the region’s only comprehensive institute for Alzheimer and neurodegenerative diseases.

"The impact that the John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation has on our community is tremendous," said Susan Steves Thompson, vice president, grants, programs and services for SAAF. "We are just beginning to experience the effects of Mr. Santikos's vision and how that will be felt for generations to come."