In 2023, the Vernon L. Odom Fund awarded grants totaling $10,000 to 11 nonprofit organizations:
Dancing Classrooms Northeast Ohio received $500 for a ballroom dance residency program at Akron Public Schools.
- Akron Inner City Soccer Club, to support an after-school soccer program for low-income families in Akron, $1,000
- Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Zeta Theta Omega Chapter, to support "Perfecting Our Pearls," a youth leadership program that will provide young women from minority backgrounds with education and mentorship, while improving their self-esteem, $1,000
- Dancing Classrooms Northeast Ohio, to support social-emotional learning for Akron Public Schools students through a ballroom dance residency program, $500
- Girls on the Run Northeast Ohio, to increase representation of volunteer coaches from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds by providing stipends to remove child care and transportation barriers, $1,000
- Law and Leadership Institute, to support a tuition-free, four-year college preparatory program for promising high school students who are at risk of not graduating high school or attending college, $1,000
- Limitless Ambition, to support a mother-daughter brunch event that will help Summit County mothers strengthen their relationship with their teenage daughters, $1,000
- South Akron Youth Mentorship, to support a series of fine arts workshops that empower students in Southeast Akron to express themselves through creativity, overcome challenging tasks, and collaborate with their peers, $500
- South Street Ministries, to support an after-school enrichment program that provides literacy and life skills training for elementary school students in the Summit Lake and South Akron neighborhoods, $1,000
- Summit Artspace, to support the installation of "Black Spaces: Defying Social Constructs," an exhibition by local artist Crystal Miller that explores the Black experience through an Afrofuturistic lens, $1,000
- University of Akron Foundation, to establish the National Society of Black Engineers Jr. at Buchtel CLC to encourage academic excellence, college readiness and an interest in STEM careers among Black students, $1,000
- Williams Challenge, to strengthen families by providing a six-week fatherhood mentoring program at no cost to absent and recently incarcerated fathers, $1,000