Casey Foundation Awards New Haven Grants

The Annie E. Casey Foundation and its direct service agency, Casey Family Services, today announced the award of $254,600 to 14 non-profit organizations serving vulnerable children, youth, and families in New Haven. The Foundation annually funds a wide range of 501(c) (3), not-for-profit or community-serving organizations working directly with disadvantaged children, youth, and families in New Haven.

“Through this grant program, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has contributed more than $1 million in the past four years to New Haven’s nonprofit agencies and its efforts to build a stronger and more cohesive community,” said Douglas W. Nelson, Foundation president.

Two organizations working together – ’R Kids Inc. and New Life Corporation – also received a $50,000 Collaboration Grant to support the Family Cents/Community Counts program. The program will provide training in life skills and financial literacy as well as links to employment opportunities to 25 mothers who have been reunified with their children previously residing in foster care. The funding will be directed to staffing, curriculum materials, and stipends for those participants who successfully complete the training.

Twelve individual grant awards in 2007 range from $10,000 to $20,000 for first year funding. Each of the grantees is eligible to receive 50 percent of the 2007 award in the grant’s second year.

• AIDS Project New Haven ($10,000) for Enhance Caring Cuisine, a program that provides free nutritional services and daily home-delivered meals and groceries for families infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS
• All Our Kin, Inc, ($20,000) to provide support and materials to unlicensed child care providers, helping 20 participants to meet health and safety standards and complete state licensing requirements;
• Community Mediation, Inc. ($20,000) to provide school-based peer mediation training and workshops to address the issues of youth violence;
• Concepts for Adaptive Learning, Inc. ($12,600) to provide computer technology and training for financially challenged parents of elementary school children;
• Connecticut Fair Housing Center, Inc. ($20,000) to provide legal rights-oriented anti-predatory lending training and advocacy to families most at-risk of being targeted by unscrupulous lenders;
• Covenant to Care for Children, Inc, ($20,000) to support the Mom, Mentor and Me (M3) program to address the critical needs of children with incarcerated mothers via a faith-based, best practices mentoring model that includes a family service component;
• FISH of Greater New Haven, Inc. ($10,000) to maintain food supplies and provide free food deliveries to the elderly, disabled, and to needy families;
• Mutual Housing Association of South Central Connecticut ($17,000) to support a resident service coordinator position to assist residents, neighborhood partners and partner agencies in designing in-house programs for youth and families and build referral relationships with outside agencies as part of a new family learning center;
• NeighborhoodMusicSchool ($20,000) to provide opportunities for economically disadvantaged and at-risk children and families to participate in high-quality music, dance, and drama education;
• Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, Inc. ($15,000) to support a Summer Series on Sexuality designed to help reduce teen pregnancy among New Haven teens;
• Solar Youth, Inc. ($20,000) to support Citycology, a summer youth employment program that trains and hires New Haven teens to deliver hands-on lessons about watersheds, the Long Island Sound, and the environment in general;
• Youth Rights Media, Inc, ($20,000) to support the 2007 Summer Institute, an intensive youth development program providing stipends to 20 youths who train as community organizers.

Casey Family Services Executive Director Raymond L. Torres said, “In the grant program’s fourth year, we are pleased to be able to continue supporting innovative, community-based programs that help to ensure that children can grow up in strong, healthy families within a supportive community. With more than 43 applications received. The decision making was difficult, but I am confident that these organizations will deliver strong results.”

The Annie E. Casey Foundation is the nation’s largest private foundation devoted exclusively to improving the lives of disadvantaged children and families. It was established in 1948 by Jim Casey, a founder of UPS. In 1976, the Foundation established its direct service agency, Casey Family Services, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to offer quality, long-term foster care. Today, with divisions in both Bridgeport and Hartford and headquarters in New Haven, Casey Family Services offers a range of services aimed at preserving and achieving families for life for children in or at risk-of entering foster care.