Helping children, families, and communities grow stronger together.

Casey Foundation Awards $305,500 to Nonprofits Serving New Haven Children and Families

Contact:
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Public Affairs Manager
203.401.6955

New Haven, CT — The Annie E. Casey Foundation and its direct service agency, Casey Family Services, today announced the award of $305,500 to 14 nonprofit organizations serving New Haven’s vulnerable children and families. This year’s funding efforts focused on increasing the financial stability of families.

“As a community, New Haven faces many challenges, and the current climate is even more challenging for the city’s vulnerable children and families,” says John Padilla, a senior program associate responsible for the Casey Foundation’s work in Connecticut. “This really is a time for new approaches to addressing long-time problems, given the funding environment in which all our partners are operating. However, New Haven has a vibrant nonprofit community that is willing and able to support these families, and the Casey Foundation is pleased to support their efforts through the New Haven Grants Program.”

The Boys & Girls Club of New Haven and Easter Seals Goodwill Industries were jointly awarded a grant for $75,000 per year over two years to collaborate on a program that will provide in-depth services and supports in the areas of basic skills, job readiness, financial education, and credit repair, all of which are intended to help strengthen the family’s financial self-sufficiency.

In addition to the collaborative grant, 12 other grants were awarded as follows:

• Arte Inc. ($10,000) to support an after-school arts program in Fairhaven neighborhood schools.
• Center for Children’s Advocacy ($10,500) to support the Homeless Youth Advocacy Project to provide legal services and care to youth at risk of becoming homeless.
• Clifford W. Beers Child Guidance Clinic ($25,000) to develop and implement a “Happy Parent” Hour support group for parents of children who have behavioral health issues.
• Connecticut Invention Convention, Inc. ($10,000) to develop and enhance the critical-thinking skills and problem-solving techniques of students, kindergarten through eighth grade, through invention-based activities that promote careers in engineering and sciences. 
• The Consultation Center ($25,000) to serve 20 high-school students and their grandparents to promote college enrollment among children raised by relatives.
• The Diaper Bank ($25,000) to support the expansion of the existing Diaper Distribution Network in New Haven with the implementation of a data-gathering and dissemination system. 
• Easter Seals Goodwill Industries ($25,000) to support monthly “family night out” activities to increase parent-child involvement and improve social family relationships.
• Empower New Haven ($25,000) to support a case management position for the Elm City YouthBuild program’s supportive housing component.
• Junior Achievement ($15,000) to teach financial education to 1,000 New Haven students in grades kindergarten through eight. 
• New Haven Ecology Project ($25,000) to connect more than 60 young people with paid employment that develops leadership, basic employment skills, and training. 
• Soul Friends, Inc. ($10,000) to support an animal-assisted, group psychotherapy program for children living through loss, grief, illness, trauma, and transition.
• Southern Connecticut State University Foundation ($25,000) to support the Education Mentoring Program that provides mentors to 35 fifth-grade African American and Hispanic male students at Beecher School.

Raymond L. Torres, vice president of the Casey Foundation and executive director of Casey Family Services, is pleased with the grant program’s increasing contributions to the city. “The safety net for vulnerable children and families, largely held together by local nonprofit organizations, is being stressed more today than at any other time in recent memory. I am confident that this year’s grants will allow our partners to strengthen this safety net and deliver quality services to our neighbors in need.”

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 created 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 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 throughout New England and in Baltimore, Maryland.