A committee from the Bishops' Fund for Children Board of Trustees meets every April to evaluate grant applications. Recommendations are then presented to the board for final approval. Grants are made in late May or June.
Bishops' Fund for Children - 2010 Grants
1. Bridgeport Area Youth Ministry, Inc. BAYM strives to enable inner-city youth to discover their talents and exercise them in a real world business environment through technology, trade training and career development. Students learn to rebuild computers and are given one at graduation.
2. NEON –Naugatuck Ecumenical Outreach Network is a new program that augments the Naugatuck Ecumenical Food Bank.
3. The Day Camp at Rectory School, Pomfret, strives to provide good role models, increase self-esteem and self-worth.
4. F.R.E.S.H. New London: ( Food, Resources, Education, Security, Help) is an experiential education of health, life skills and stewardship. The Urban Garden Center educates and employs 16 neighborhood youths to grow produce. They also sell the crops cheaply in poor neighborhoods.
5. Person-to-Person, Darien, provides summer camperships for elementary and middle school aged youth from low-income households at more than 2 dozen camps in the Fairfield County area.
6. Christian Community Action, New Haven is an ecumenical social services organization that expresses faithful witness by providing emergency food, housing and support to those who are poor in New Haven.
7. Interfaith Housing Association, Westport: The Bacharach Community is three small homes that shelter homeless mothers and their children who are victims of economic hardship, drug or alcohol abuse, domestic violence and/or mental illness.
8. St. Luke’s Services, Inc., New Haven, PALS summer school program is a 5 to 6 week program for 40 to 50 public school children primarily from single-parent households, dependent on public assistance- many of whom have experienced severe deprivation. Their goals are for students to strengthen reading and writing skills, foster love for their year-round academic program, gain a community, and learn respect for peers and teachers/adults.
9. Christian Counseling Center of Greater Danbury, Inc.: Areas of focus are substance abuse (treatment and prevention), eating disorders, acting out behavior, trauma recovery work, identity and faith issues and strengthening family units.
10. Madonna Place, Norwich serves children who are in the custody of DCF, foster care, or living with a custodial parent/guardian, and provides a safe, nurturing and professionally supervised environment for parent visitations.
11. Educational Resources for Children, Inc., Enfield, “teams with kids, communities, schools, and families to grow resilient kids” by providing quality, academic out-of-school-time programs to at-risk children and their families.
12. Covenant to Care for Children, Bloomfield, Mentoring Program serves approximately 40 youth, ages 5-18 in the greater Hartford area, half of whom are teen moms with no stable adult in their family. In 2010 there is a new emphasis in the mentoring program to help disconnected youth with education, life-skills training and employment preparation.
13. St. Andrew’s Your Place Youth Center, New Haven: “Your Place” operates year round and a 6 week summer program for grades 6-12. Through discouraging unhealthy behavior and encouraging healthy behavior, Your Place helps each student gain an understanding of goal setting, a sense of accomplishment, as well as increased self-worth, laying a foundation for a successful future.
14. Connecticut Community Boating, Bridgeport: The after school, Maritime Explorer’s Program, is the only program in CT to offer low income children the opportunity to learn to swim and sail. Once children demonstrate proficiency in Red Cross Level I swimming, they may advance to the sailing segment of the program.
15. L’Eglise de L’Epiphanie Summer Camp, Stamford, is a 4 week summer day camp for approximately 30 children. Dance was added last year to teach the children the basics of Haitian and traditional dance.
16. St. Mark’s Toddler Playgroup, Mystic: A program/playgroup for 2 year olds, half of whom are identified as having special needs. ACCESS was started in response to a request from the State of CT for a location in which the State could deliver services to children in the Birth to Three Program. When the State stopped funding the program, St. Mark’s decided to continue the important work. Special needs include autism, cerebral palsy, language delays, Noonan syndrome, CRASH syndrome and others.
17. Covenant Shelter of New London, provides a clean, safe, structured, supportive environment to homeless individuals and single parent families. Support services include an on-site tutoring/mentoring program with enrichment activities for school-age children, which directly targets the issues presented by homelessness.
18. Family Matters, Bridgeport, is a pre-school program for 75 children of the working poor in Bridgeport, many of whom speak Spanish or Arabic as their first language. They offer free admission to families to provide their children with important readiness skills for entry into public school.
19. TEEG Thompson Ecumenical Empowerment Group, North Grosvenordale, provides parent/pre-school child playgroups, empowers families to build strong relationships and promotes family interdependence by connecting parents and children with resources that will benefit and support their family life. TEEG provides families with food, fuel and energy assistance, holiday meals and gifts.
20. St. Mark’s Day Care Center, Bridgeport in partnership with the Bridgeport Schools, this full-time summer program serves 85 school age and pre-school children, and consists of reading, math and science through cooking, carpentry, gardening and animal care, and a full sports program.
21. Hands on Hartford, Hartford: Center for Youth’s Backpack Program provides weekend meals to needy children in Hartford. They hope to grow the program from serving 100 children in 2 neighborhoods to serving 1000 children throughout the city.
22. Light and Peace at Trinity Church, Hartford: This ministry provides a safe structured time to discuss faith, gain Biblical knowledge, eat a well-balanced meal, practice manners, courtesy and social skills, begin family faith discussions, and foster creative expression through prayer, arts and social interactions.
23. DOMUS, Stamford: The Lion’s Den Out-of-School-Time program operates in conjunction with Trailblazers Academy, a middle school DOMUS founded to teach and support youth which other Stamford-area schools have given up on. Entering students are often 3 or more grade levels behind in reading. 45-minute KidzLit sessions are offered (a nationally recognized literacy program specially designed for after-school programs.)
24. Winchester Youth Service Bureau, Winsted: The program is a therapeutic, recreational program which uses a behavioral modification system of rewards and consequences for 7 children, 1 day a week for 8 weeks, and there are 4 programs.
25. Y-US, Inc. , Hartford: The Better Horizons program provides long-term peer support each year for 30 Hartford youths ages 8-16, to break the cycle of abuse and help them develop into responsible and caring members of society. The majority of kids are from low-income, female-headed households and approximately 90% live in foster care. All have experienced some form of abuse or trauma. Participants attend two weekly 2 ˝ hour support meetings, and two Saturday retreats per month for 5 hours each. Y-US annually serves over 300 youth ages 0-18.
26. Children’s Community School, Inc., Waterbury, 9-week summer program for CCS students and other Waterbury children, which includes an academic program as well as an enrichment program for students age 5-11. CCS is a small private elementary school educating some of Waterbury’s neediest children for $250 per year (the real cost is $8,000).
27. Thames River Family Program, Norwich: Children and mothers who are homeless due to poverty, substandard housing, poor choices and abandonment come to TRFP to live for up to 2 years. Their Children’s Mental Health and Wellness program tries to help younger children deal with histories of abuse and neglect before their experiences manifest themselves in negative and inappropriate behaviors. This program parallels the one for their mothers.
28. The Bridge Family Center, Inc., West Hartford: This short-term assessment shelter (2 months to 1 year) helps girls overcome trauma in their lives through the healing power of healthy, trusting relationships, respecting their unique backgrounds, with full support, services and guidance provided around the clock. They strive to create a home-like environment so the girls feel welcome and safe during a difficult time in their lives, and work to prepare them for the next placement whether it is reunification with their family, a foster family or a group home.
29. Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) New Haven, offers services to new immigrants in the areas of language, employment prospects, accessing information, and increased civic engagement and self-advocacy. The IRIS childcare program is a school readiness program for ages 0-5 which exposes children to classroom structure, socialization, and English language skills.
30. Family & Children’s Agency, Inc., Norwalk. Girls Challenge is a youth development/mentoring program for 12 adolescent girls, who meet weekly, and have quarterly team building challenges during the school year. The program was created to affirm and encourage the development of each girl’s own internal resources rather than focus on “fixing” the deficits that have resulted in her “at risk” label.
31. Rhythms of Grace, Plainville/Torrington: Designed for children on the Autism Spectrum who have extraordinary challenges in communications skills, this program combines story telling, exploration centers and the sacrament of Holy Communion in a gentle, welcoming, safe, informal environment. Parents have an opportunity to network and receive support and spiritual nourishment without worrying about how their children are being perceived.
32. Choir School of Hartford, Trinity Hartford, meets twice a week, using the RSCM curriculum and offers free piano lessons once a week for 9 months.
33. St. Luke’s Life Works, Stamford, works with children and their families to break the cycle of homelessness by providing housing, quality daycare and camperships, while parents are helped with GED’s, new employment, life skills, parenting skills and volunteer or paid internships.
