The Suffolk Foundation has provided $4.75 million in grants, donations and gifts during the last 10 years for organizations and scholarships for those in Suffolk and Western Tidewater.

Suffolk Foundation President Les Hall announced the monumental figure at the foundation’s eighth annual Community Forum and Luncheon on Nov. 7. The forum was attended by dozens of local leaders.

The Suffolk Foundation is an organization that assists individuals, corporations, organizations and other foundations meet their own charitable goals. It has collected more than $7.1 million in donations over the last 10 years.

The foundation’s goal is to help serve those in Suffolk and the surrounding areas, and they have done so by awarding $430,250 in grants solely dedicated to human need.

Health and education also received a large amount of funding from the Suffolk Foundation over the last decade. Health and education organizations received almost $400,000 combined in funding.

Other grants have been made in areas including arts education and environmental.

The foundation serves Suffolk and the Western Tidewater region, and for the last decade it has awarded large grants to a multitude of organizations.

ForKids, which recently opened its new regional center on West Constance Road, has received $57,000 in grants from the foundation over the last 10 years. This puts the organization alongside the Western Tidewater Free Clinic as the agencies that have benefited most from the Suffolk Foundation since its inception.

Other agencies that have received large amounts of grants include the Suffolk Family YMCA, Salvation Army, CHKD Child Abuse Program, Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia, Virginia Legal Aid Society, the Boys and Girls Club and more.

The foundation also now has a new fund. Hall announced the formation of the Women’s Impact Fund at the forum.

“The new Women’s Impact Fund is dedicated to serving women’s and children’s issues in our area, and was started to harness the incredible energy of the female leaders in our community as well as bring diversity to the Suffolk Foundation Board of Directors,” Executive Director Win Winslow said.

The forum also featured guest speakers, Chief Executive Officer of ForKids Thaler McCormick and Chief Investment Strategist and Director of International Equity at Riverfront Investment Group Chris Konstantinos.

Konstantinos has experience as an equity sector analyst, portfolio manager and portfolio risk manager across domestic and international markets. He was invited to speak with the forum about what investing looks like today on a global scale and how that is going to look in the future.

Editor’s note: Several statistics in this story have been corrected from the original version.