Seven nonprofits, including four from the Baton Rouge area, have received more than $250,000 from the T.J. Moran Family Foundation, which announced the awards at a press conference this morning.
Among the local organizations that received a total of $220,000 in grants are the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which received $25,000 each; the Gaitway Therapeutic Horsemanship, which received $60,000; and the Gateway Transition Center, awarded $110,000. Three out-of-state organizations received a total of $30,000.
The award recipients reflect the foundation’s goals and causes that were near and dear to the late T.J. Moran, a renowned restaurateur, and philanthropist who died in 2015.
The largest award went to the Gateway Transition Center, a Central-based organization devoted to helping teenagers and young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder transition into adulthood. The organization, founded in 2014 by the parents of a teenager with ASD, offers two programs: A day program where participants are taught soft skills that will help them with independent living and a screen printing business, Gateway Ink, that employs young adults with ASD.
Gaitway Therapeutic Horsemanship, based in St. Gabriel, uses horseback riding and other types of equine therapy to help children and adults with a variety of disabilities. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation are affiliated with national organizations that work to find cures for the diseases.
The awards are the first the T.J. Moran Family Foundation has made since becoming fully funded and organized. Moran established the foundation shortly before his death in 2015.
The foundation’s board is led by Moran’s children and grandchildren, who are responsible for continuing his spirit of giving, remaining sensitive to the causes he championed, and finding new opportunities to address Baton Rouge’s needs, according to the foundation’s website.
Moran was legendary in the local restaurant industry for more than three decades. Before his retirement in the late 2000s, his company, TJM Restaurant Management, owned and operated several of Baton Rouge restaurants, including TJ Ribs, Ruffino’s, Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Ninfa’s Mexican Restaurant.
In addition to running a successful restaurant management company, Moran was a generous philanthropist. In 2011, he donated $1 million to the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center Foundation, which he credited with saving his life when he was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1980s. Moran also was founding director of the Dale Brown Foundation and served on the boards of the Pennington Biomedical Research Foundation, Girls and Boys Town, and the Baton Rouge River Center.
—Stephanie Riegel
