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Sisters of Charity awards grants to local organizations

The Berkeley Independent - 8/7/2017

Community Enrichment grants are designed to provide financial support to organizations whose services go beyond meeting basic needs and will help lift people out of poverty.

Florence Crittenton Programs of South Carolina ($10,000) - Funding will support the residential program which provides low-income young women ages 10-21 with safe housing, medical care, academic education, counseling, childbirth and parenting education, and job readiness skills. The young women served by the program are either pregnant, parenting, or in foster care. Teen pregnancy is associated with many risk factors and Florence Crittenton Programs (FCP) offers an innovative approach to addressing a wide array of needs faced by this extremely vulnerable population.

Palmetto Place Children’s Center ($15,000) - Funding will support the Palmetto Place Unaccompanied Youth program which provides shelter and services to teens who have been forced to leave their families and to teens who have never had a family support system. One of the most common barriers seen in this population is the limitations placed on a minor because of their age. At 16, if the youth doesn’t have a parent or legal guardian, it is unlikely he/she will have copies crucial documents needed to gain employment and further an education such as a birth certificate, Social Security card or school records. Not having these documents can cripple the youth’s steps toward success. Additional barriers a homeless minor may face include obtaining a bank account, building credit to one day rent a or buy a car, and/or obtain a driver’s license. With 17 beds, the Unaccompanied Youth program (UY) not only provides food, clothing and shelter for teens, but also prepares them to live independently and reach self-sufficiency. Through the UY program, teens learn the life skills that are necessary to meet their goals for education and employment. This includes sessions on applying for jobs and to colleges, making and managing money, meal planning and grocery shopping on a budget, and many other skills. A lifetime without support and structure can leave a teen underqualified for even the most basic jobs preventing them from ever breaking the cycle of poverty. Palmetto Place not only offers safety and support, but the skills for these youths to grow into successful independent adults.

Sustainability Institute ($30,000) - Funding will support The Sustainability Institute (“SI”) which provides outreach and education to empower consumers to reduce energy bills and achieve verifiable energy savings; workforce training to retool individuals with in-demand certifications and work experience to place them into high-demand, energy industry jobs; community-based energy efficiency programs to directly retrofit, weatherize or upgrade the efficiency of residential housing units to reduce energy use and save families money; and technical consulting and expertise to help cities and other stakeholders develop city-scale strategies for energy efficiency, carbon emissions reduction and energy industry jobs. Grant funding will support the SI Energy Conservation Corps (“ECC”) program. The ECC program addresses two critical needs in the Charleston metro area: 1) Rehabilitation of existing, low-income homes that utilizes a dual focus on direct energy efficiency upgrades and homeowner empowerment in order to significantly reduce unaffordable energy costs for families. 2) Workforce training for economically disadvantaged or underserved populations that is focused on supplying certified workers for a burgeoning energy efficiency industry in South Carolina where specialized-labor is in demand.

Turning Leaf Project ($25,000) - Funding will support Turning Leaf Project’s efforts to serve adult men who are recently released from incarceration returning to Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties. Turning Leaf’s mission is to help men who have been assessed at a medium to high risk of re-arrest to change their attitude, thinking and behavior so they can adapt successfully to community based living without re-incarceration. The program is designed to provide participants with what they need to be successful after incarceration - that is, a network of support, the thinking skills to make good decisions, practice coping adaptively with life/work demands, soft work readiness skills, and ultimately a referral to a job and sustained employment in the competitive workforce. This funding will support services that are coordinated from one centralized location, including cognitive behavioral therapy classes, an in-house training class (screen printing), transitional employment, case management, job coaching and permanent job placement. The goal is to reduce recidivism for program participants. Turning Leaf recognizes that successful reentry and rehabilitation requires connecting individuals to employment and support systems as they move away from a criminal lifestyle.

WINGS ($30,000) - Funding will support WINGS for Kids, which is a proven education program that teaches economically disadvantaged kids skills to improve behavior, decision-making, and healthy relationship building. WINGS does this by weaving a comprehensive Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum into a fresh and fun after school program in elementary schools. Students get the life lessons they need to succeed and be happy, and they get a safe place to call home after school. Despite a growing need, there is no other afterschool program focused on SEL in the state of South Carolina. Students are referred into the afterschool program by teachers and principals based on their struggles in school and lack of family support at home. WINGS for Kids works with students in need three hours per day. WINGS is free to families and provides at-risk students with a powerful social-emotional education, direct academic support, valuable mentoring, and enrichment opportunities, plus a hot meal and bus transportation home each night. The families must commit their child to a full year of participation in the WINGS program and cannot use it on a drop-in basis because each lesson builds upon the other. With this grant, funds will support the WINGS program in three low-income schools in the Charleston area: Chicora School of Communications, Edmund A. Burns Elementary and North Charleston Elementary school.

Community Enrichment Grant funding requests may be for new programs within proven organizations, existing programs with proven success, strategic planning, collaborative projects, or other justifiable programs. Organizations applying for Community Enrichment Grant funding should have short and long term goals and objectives and be able to provide measurable outcomes.

Applicants should have a 501©(3) tax exempt status and provide programs or services within South Carolina. A requirement will be the submission of a specific budget and narrative to support the grant request. It is the responsibility of the grant seeker to justify a reasonable dollar amount.

For information on the Foundation’s grant guidelines visit us on the web at https://sistersofcharitysc.com/grants/ or contact Donna Waites, senior program director.