PROVIDENCE – The holidays will be a little merrier for many needy and homeless Rhode Islanders thanks to $500,000 in one-time emergency grants announced today by the Rhode Island Foundation.

“We saw the need to be responsive in these unusually stressful economic times,” President and CEO Neil Steinberg said in his midday announcement at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank in Providence. “Thanks to the generosity of the hundreds of Rhode Islanders with funds at the foundation, we are uniquely positioned to make these emergency dollars available for food, shelter and heating assistance.”

The money will be divided equally among three nonprofits, to help them cope with the Ocean State’s rising tide of hunger and homelessness:

• The Rhode Island Community Food Bank, which helps feed about 50,000 Rhode Islanders – a third of them children – via its 66,000-square-foot headquarters and distribution facility on Niantic Avenue and its network of nearly 400 member agencies.

• Crossroads Rhode Island, which provides 24/7 services and support to homeless families and individuals.

• The local Salvation Army Good Neighbor Energy Fund, operated by the Rhode Island state office of the charity’s Southern New England Division. The evangelical social services agency – known for its thrift stores and “red kettle” holiday bell-ringer fund drives – provides help for the homeless, food for the hungry, training for the handicapped and other assistance for the elderly and displaced across the state via five Corps Community Centers or volunteer-driven service units in every city and town.

Those agencies “have a long track record of providing direct services to Rhode Islanders in need, and they provide these services statewide,” Steinberg said, explaining why nonprofits were targeted for special assistance by the Rhode Island Foundation board of directors. “As the only community foundation in Rhode Island, our board and staff felt strongly that we should reach out to residents throughout the state.”

Joining him for the noon announcement were Andrew Schiff, the Food Bank’s executive director; Anne Nolan, president of CrossroadsRI; and Doug Burr, a Salvation Army major and one of the group’s two state coordinators for Rhode Island.

For the Food Bank, “This grant will provide 350,000 pounds of food – enough to fill the entire warehouse and ensure that all of our emergency food programs have enough food for the winter,” said Schiff, who noted that “nearly 11 percent of all Rhode Island households – 47,000 households – struggle to put food on the table. … The price of groceries has increased six percent in the past year alone.”

For CrossroadsRI, “This grant will make an incredible difference,” allowing the nonprofit to extend its crisis-intervention services, Nolan said “Rhode Islanders have been particularly hard hit by the national collapse of the mortgage market, by devastating unemployment and [by] the severity of the state’s economic downturn,” she added. And, “with the weather so brutal so early in the season, record numbers of people have sought shelter.”

And at the Salvation Army energy fund, which last year helped more than 2,200 local families not eligible for state of federal energy aid, the money means “we will be able to extend a helping hand to more than 500 additional residents,” said Burr, the local Good Neighbor fund director, adding: “The generosity of our fellow Rhode Islanders will make this season far more comfortable for those who are struggling to get by.”

Steinberg – noting that the emergency aid is a departure from the Rhode Island Foundation’s usual grantmaking practices – described the present as “a pivotal moment, when those who have the means must dig deep and give more.

“We are not issuing a formal challenge to Rhode Islanders to join us,” the foundation CEO added, “but we will be thrilled if this grant inspires people to increase their charitable contributions at a time of tremendous need in our state.”

The Rhode Island Foundation, founded in 1916, is one of the nation’s largest and oldest charitable organizations serving a specific geographic community. To learn more about the foundation or its programs, visit www.RIFoundation.org. Additional information is available at www.CrossroadsRI.org, www.RIFoodBank.org and www.USE.SalvationArmy.org.