Mar 21, 2020

Atlanta philanthropist donates to Montana causes

Blank Foundation helps Montana nonprofits as COVID spreads

BOZEMAN — The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation announced Friday that it will provide more than $5 million in total funding to organizations in Georgia and Montana in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The foundation plans to give a $50,000 grant to Hopa Mountain, a Bozeman-based nonprofit organization that invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders. The grant will provide necessities such as food, clothing, housing and cleaning supplies to Native American and Latino communities in Montana, according to a press release from the Atlanta Falcons, who are owned by Arthur Blank, the foundation's chairman.

The Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) in Bozeman will also get $50,000, meant primarily for alternative housing options for the homeless and housing assistance programs for vulnerable Montanans, per the press release.

The foundation will donate $25,000 to the Gallatin Valley Food Bank and grant $20,000 to the Livingston Food Resource Center.

The Bozeman-based Healthy Gallatin Campaign will receive $20,000 from the foundation to produce PSAs designed to spread accurate information about COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Montana had 16 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday night, and Georgia had 420 as of Friday afternoon.

The Arthur M. Blank Family of Businesses purchased more than 9,000 acres of land in Paradise Valley for $19.5 million. Blank bought a 6,300-acre ranch in Paradise Valley about three years earlier.