The Westport South Beach Historical Society is one of 26 non-profit organizations and agencies that were recently awarded a total of $215,306 in grants from the Grays Harbor Community Foundation.

Discretionary grants are awarded by the foundation on a quarterly basis each year, with 17 recipients in this third-quarter round.

Ten additional $5,000 grants from the Foundation’s new Capacity Building Initiative were also awarded this quarter. The Initiative is designed to help nonprofit agencies and organizations improve and build their internal capacity to handle day-to-day operations.

The Historical Society was the only organization to receive grants from both the Foundation’s Discretionary program and its Capacity Building Initiative.

The Society owns the collections and operates the Westport Maritime Museum, the Destruction Island Lens Exhibit Hall and a meeting center — McCausland Hall. It also owns the Grays Harbor Light Station, where the society offers educational tours to the top of the state’s tallest lighthouse.

The $10,000 discretionary grant will allow the society to modernize technology at McCausland Hall.

The Historical Society will use its $5,000 Capacity Building Initiative grant to modernize the Westport Maritime Museum’s collections inventory system.

Protecting the photo collection and creating a stronger archiving systems is also a major concern. Currently, historical photos are stored in a number of ways — in bins, boxes, file cabinets, drawers and/or in piles on workspaces up on the third floor.

Additional grants

•American Cancer Society — Increasing colorectal screenings in Grays Harbor

•Breast Cancer Alliance Fund — Assistance with PUD bills for cancer patients

•Child Care Action Council — Raising a Reader

•Community Youth Services — Haven House Shelter Services

•First Presbyterian Church — Recovery Grays Harbor

•Hoquiam Food and Clothing Bank — backpack program

•Hoquiam High School — Grizzly Fusion Mentor Program

•Lake Quinault School District — Fine arts field trips and after-school gardening program

•McCleary School District — playground refurbishment

•Montesano Community Outreach — summer art camp

•Neighborhood Housing Service — Sunrise Court Playground Renewal Project

•Nonprofit Leaders Conference of Coastal and SW WA — 2016-2017 Conference

•Olympic Area Agency for Aging of Grays Harbor – Senior emergency funds

•The ARC of Grays Harbor — building remodels

•Washington State University Foundation — GHC Extension’s Diabetes Prevention Program

Additional Capacity Building grants

•Coastal Harvest — technology upgrades

•Dispute Resolution Center of Grays Harbor and Pacific County — implementation of a Spanish Mediation Program

•Grays Harbor CASA — IT core upgrade

•Grays Harbor College Foundation — donor software

•Habitat for Humanity Grays Harbor — technology improvements

•North Beach Artists Guild — infrastructure regrowth

•The ARC of Grays Harbor — accessible transportation services

•Washington Coast Sustainable Salmon Foundation — website design and brand re-launch

•YMCA of Grays Harbor — Camp Bishop master planning

The foundation’s annual after-school grants went to the McCleary School District, McDermoth Elementary, Montesano Community Outreach and the YMCA’s Harbor After-School Program.

Find out more about the Grays Harbor Community Foundation’s grant programs at: gh-cf.org or contact the Foundation staff at: 532-1600 or by e-mail at info@gh-cf.org

The next grants deadline is Oct. 3, at 5 p.m.