Baltimore Nonprofits Awarded Grants to Support Summer Programs for Local Kids

BAL­TI­MORE — Twen­ty-one local non­prof­its were award­ed grants through the Foundation’s 2012 Bal­ti­more Direct Ser­vice Grant (BDSG) pro­gram. The select­ed orga­ni­za­tions will receive a total of $300,000 to pro­vide sum­mer activ­i­ties for close to 1,100 dis­ad­van­taged Bal­ti­more City youths.

The Casey Foundation’s BDSG pro­gram began in 1995 and has con­tributed more than $10 mil­lion to sup­port a wide range of inno­v­a­tive ideas and prac­tices for chil­dren and fam­i­lies across the city. The 2012 grants will sup­port aca­d­e­m­ic and cul­tur­al enrich­ment, life skills and work­force devel­op­ment, and lead­er­ship devel­op­ment pro­grams for youth. Many of these pro­grams are geared toward vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren, such as those with spe­cial needs, in fos­ter care or aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly at risk.

“Our grant recip­i­ents offer an array of pro­grams designed to enrich the lives of Bal­ti­more City youth through­out the sum­mer and teach them skills they can car­ry with them into adult­hood,” said Sophie Dage­nais, direc­tor of the Casey Foundation’s Bal­ti­more Civic Site. ​“We’re pleased to be able to fund pro­grams that advance efforts to improve out­comes for chil­dren and families.”

The 2012 BDSG recip­i­ents are:

• Art With a Heart ($10,000)
  A visu­al arts pro­gram involv­ing 10 com­mu­ni­ty part­ners and pro­vid­ing youths — many of them home­less, some expec­tant moth­ers, all from low-income fam­i­lies — with access to pos­i­tive and pro­duc­tive pro­gram­ming, car­ing and nur­tur­ing adults, and the chance to embrace new ideas and skills in a safe and struc­tured environment.
   
• Bal­ti­more Squash­wise ($17,894)
  Pro­vid­ing long-term aca­d­e­m­ic and social sup­port to city pub­lic school stu­dents by com­bin­ing inten­sive aca­d­e­m­ic tutor­ing with coach­ing in the sport of squash. In the short term, the pro­gram aims to improve grades, aca­d­e­m­ic effort, fit­ness and nutri­tion. The long-term goals are 100% high school grad­u­a­tion, col­lege com­ple­tion and life planning.
   
• Bal­ti­more Tal­ent Edu­ca­tion Cen­ter ($18,370)
  A six-week pro­gram for 25 begin­ner stu­dents from low-income fam­i­lies in Low­er Park Heights. BTEC aims to have stu­dents grad­u­ate to pro­fi­cien­cy in per­for­mance and com­po­si­tion, and become cul­tur­al­ly aware of their city’s con­tri­bu­tions to clas­si­cal, folk and jazz music.
   
• Chesa­peake Cen­ter for Youth Devel­op­ment ($18,773)
  A five-week pro­gram for 60 Brook­lyn and Cur­tis Bay youths required to attend sum­mer school because of poor aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance. Eight old­er neigh­bor­hood youths with juve­nile jus­tice expe­ri­ence will be trained to men­tor this younger generation.
   
• Cop­pin State Uni­ver­si­ty Devel­op­ment Foun­da­tion, Inc. ($20,000)
  A pro­gram for 40 youths (ages 7–12) who are read­ing below grade lev­el, with a mix of sum­mer learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that include read­ing, swim­ming and water safe­ty, char­ac­ter edu­ca­tion and enrich­ment activ­i­ties in art, dance and music.
   
• Eagles Nest Out­reach Cen­ter ($9,400)
  The Sum­mer Life Skills Boot Camp includes a wealth-build­ing series, health and nutri­tion, read­ing and math enrich­ment and lessons in goal-set­ting for kids, while also engag­ing par­ents in work­shops and trainings.
   
• Edu­ca­tion Based Lati­no Out­reach, Inc. ($20,000)
  Mi Segun­da Casa aims to improve aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance and pro­mote self-esteem among 45 first- through fifth-grade Eng­lish lan­guage learn­ers in East Bal­ti­more schools, rein­forc­ing con­cepts and skills learned in the pre­vi­ous aca­d­e­m­ic year and intro­duc­ing new ones for the one ahead. It inte­grates char­ac­ter edu­ca­tion and gen­er­al enrich­ment com­po­nents that include the arts, sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and math.
   
• Fells Point Cre­ative Alliance ($10,000)
  Art pro­grams for 60 youths from low- or mod­er­ate-income fam­i­lies in East and South­east Bal­ti­more neigh­bor­hoods. The pro­grams, which will run for six weeks, will include read­ing, com­pre­hen­sion and dis­cus­sion and allow stu­dents to cre­ate two- and three-dimen­sion­al art, dance or music projects relat­ed to the read­ing sessions.
   
• Full Gospel Fel­low­ship Church ($20,000)
  A pro­gram geared toward pre­vent­ing sum­mer learn­ing loss, serv­ing 50 chil­dren in grades K‑8 and includ­ing social devel­op­ment, aca­d­e­m­ic advance­ment, cul­tur­al enrich­ment and recre­ation­al activities.
   
• Fusion Part­ner­ship: A Dream in Cher­ry Hill ($10,000)
  A sev­en-week cul­tur­al lead­er­ship and civic engage­ment project for 20 Cher­ry Hill stu­dents (ages 7–18) that seeks to build lit­er­a­cy and intro­duce his­tor­i­cal research meth­ods and inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism, pro­vid­ing youths with tools for using the lit­er­ary arts to dis­cov­er and build community.
   
• High­er Achieve­ment ($15,000)
  A sum­mer acad­e­my pro­gram that seeks to reach 60 East Bal­ti­more youths, offer­ing four aca­d­e­m­ic class­es — math, sci­ence, social stud­ies and lit­er­a­ture — a dai­ly read­ing peri­od, engag­ing field trips, aca­d­e­m­ic com­pe­ti­tions and an end-of-sum­mer col­lege trip.
   
• Mid­dle Grades Part­ner­ship ($10,000)
  A five-week aca­d­e­m­ic and arts enrich­ment pro­gram to address mid­dle school under­per­for­mance and sum­mer learn­ing loss, com­bin­ing aca­d­e­m­ic instruc­tion in math, read­ing and writ­ing with the arts, ath­let­ics and per­son­al devel­op­ment — along with finan­cial lit­er­a­cy lessons and field trips inside and out­side of the city.
   
• Nation­al Muse­um of Ceram­ic Art and Glass ($15,000)
  A pro­gram to help stu­dents devel­op and sharp­en skills in ceram­ic arts, read­ing and writ­ing — and influ­ence them to stay in school, improve their aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment and class­room behav­ior, and give them a sense of accom­plish­ment through the arts. Stu­dent-designed murals have been placed through­out the city.
   
• Rob’s Bar­ber­shop Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion ($15,000)
  The Mind­ful Men­tor Plant­i­ng Seeds aims to help stu­dent-ath­letes from low-income house­holds main­tain their grade point aver­ages through dai­ly lan­guage arts and math tutor­ing, while also pro­vid­ing reg­u­lar phys­i­cal training.
   
• Some­body Cares Bal­ti­more ($10,000)
  The annu­al I Can Do It! Camp, put on in part­ner­ship with Colling­ton Square and William Marsh ele­men­tary schools, serves 160 sec­ond- through fifth-graders in East Bal­ti­more and con­sists of art projects and music lessons from teach­ers and com­mu­ni­ty art leaders.
   
• St. Fran­cis Neigh­bor­hood Cen­ter ($10,000)
• The Pow­er Project will pro­vide 30 dis­ad­van­taged Reser­voir Hill youths (ages 5–18) with home­work help, tutor­ing, arts enrich­ment, char­ac­ter devel­op­ment and life skills seminars/​workshops, non-vio­lent com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies and mentoring.
   
• Umar Box­ing Youth Devel­op­ment ($16,500)
• With the mot­to ​“no hooks before books,” this pro­gram com­bines aca­d­e­m­ic devel­op­ment — includ­ing com­put­er train­ing, read­ing assign­ments and math — and box­ing train­ing under one roof, mak­ing school­work a require­ment for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the sport.
   
• Vil­lage Learn­ing Place ($10,000)
  The LINK Sum­mer pro­gram is designed to pre­vent sum­mer learn­ing loss for at-risk stu­dents and pro­mote pos­i­tive social devel­op­ment — and engages fam­i­ly and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in programming.
   
• Wide Angle Youth Media ($15,000)
  This media edu­ca­tion pro­gram pro­motes youth social respon­si­bil­i­ty, pro­vid­ing a cre­ative out­let for high school stu­dents to see them­selves as agents of change and cre­ate media about issues impact­ing their lives and com­mu­ni­ties. The pro­gram empha­sizes lead­er­ship and work­force devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for old­er youth through peer teach­ing and mentoring.
   
• Youth as Resources ($16,874)
  The youth-led pro­gram, which aims to help stu­dents aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, phys­i­cal­ly and social­ly, will include inter­ac­tive work­shops and oth­er peer sup­port strate­gies for lead­er­ship, self-deter­mi­na­tion, com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing, grant writ­ing and project plan­ning and implementation.
   
• Youth Dream­ers ($11,947)
  The eighth annu­al ​“Dream­ers in Train­ing” pro­gram — a five-week, stu­dent-led non­prof­it man­age­ment and com­mu­ni­ty arts cur­ricu­lum for up to 20 at-risk mid­dle-school youths. Youth Dream­ers aims to pro­vide a safe haven with oppor­tu­ni­ties for youth to accom­plish per­son­al goals, devel­op lead­er­ship poten­tial and par­tic­i­pate in improv­ing their communities.