KERRVILLE— The Cailloux Foundation announced that $331,500 in grants have been awarded during the first quarter of 2001. The awards range in size from $5,000 to $250,000.

 The Association for Retarded Citizens of Gillespie County in Fredericksburg, TX was awarded a $250,000 grant to help build and maintain a new facility to serve mentally retarded citizens. The current facility, called the New Horizons Center, has been in operation since 1990. The organization currently provides job skills training, job placements, and manages group residences for people with mental retardation. Future needs for the mentally retarded population in Gillespie County are expected to increase and the larger facility will enable the organization to meet those needs.

 The Foundation provided a $45,000 grant to the Laity Renewal Foundation to purchase and install a new ropes challenge course at the  H-E-B Camp in Leakey, TX. The grant will also fund training for new  facilitors to lead groups in using the equipment. The challenge course concept is to foster trust, self esteem, communication, and leadership skills through exercises that include teamwork and interaction. More than 19,000 people used the H-E-B free camps in 2001 and 1,800 of these were from Kerr County.

 The Hill Country Arts Foundation (HCAF) in Ingram received a $19,000 grant to fund an engineering study. The study will enable the HCAF to pinpoint the organization’s exact location in the property’s flood plain, address issues regarding an old highway running through the property, plan for future wastewater treatment, and serve as the foundation for a master plan. The HCAF has served as an educational nonprofit center for the visual and performing arts since 1958. More than 20,000 participated in HCAF activities in 2001. 

A $12,500 grant was awarded to the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas (CAC) in Austin, TX. The grant will help fund a statewide web-based case tracking system to evaluate local programs, track cases with multiple agency involvement, coordinate services, and gather demographic information. The system will be accessible at each of the 51 centers in the state including the one in Kerrville. The CAC also supports the local centers by providing training, technical sssistance, and major funding through the state crime victim’s compensation fund. Local CAC’s  oversee child abuse cases in order to assure that victims travel to fewer agencies, go through fewer interviews, and received critical services as soon as possible.

 The Foundation provided a $5,000 grant to Hill Country Family Outreach (HCFO) of Kerrville to help fund the Baby Love program. Through the program, volunteers provide parents of newborns packets of parenting and community resource information, with starter kits of baby necessities for low-income parents. HCFO was established in Kerrville in 1988. The organization provides programing for the prevention of child abuse and neglect in Kerrville and the surrounding area.

 Floyd A. and Kathleen C. Cailloux created The Cailloux Foundation in 1994. The Foundation’s mission is to perpetuate their vision through the betterment of individual lives, with emphasis on the needs of disadvantaged children. Mr. Cailloux was co-founder of Keystone International and was instrumental in the company becoming a leader in the manufacturing and marketing of industrial valves for general industry. In 1981, Mr. and Mrs. Cailloux moved from Houston to Kerrville, Texas where they became very involved in charitable endeavors in the Texas Hill Country and around the state. The Foundation continues these endeavors by quietly awarding grants to eligible nonprofit organizations mainly in the Hill Country.

 The application process for the Foundation consists of an initial letter of inquiry from a nonprofit organization to help Foundation staff determine if a project fits within its guidelines. If a project does fit the guidelines, a full grant application is provided for the agency to complete. Please read the application process section on this site for more information regarding inquiries to the Foundation.n