Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina awards $373,500 to 22 organizations in community enrichment funding

Thursday, July 19, 2018

Tags: Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina , Foundations

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The Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina recently awarded $373,500 in community enrichment grants for 2018 to 22 organizations. The foundation’s mission to address poverty in all of its forms is reflected in its decision-making around community enrichment grants. These grants are designed to support nonprofits whose comprehensive services are based on experience, research and evidence-based models to break the cycle of poverty and provide long-term life change. These grants are awarded once per year and are intended to be expended in a 12-month period.

The following 22 organizations received funding:

Anderson Interfaith Ministries (AIM)
Funding will support the Women and Children Succeeding (WACS) program which provides educational opportunities to low-income individuals, mothers, and their children. Along with educational opportunities, WACS provides life skills and parenting classes, financial literacy training, childcare, children’s enrichment activities, personal and professional development, mentoring, transportation assistance, tuition/books for college, and with food, utility, and rent assistance when needed. For those who are more interested in skills-based in-demand work that pays a livable wage, AIM also offer Employment Pathways with vocational certificate opportunities. Serving Anderson, Oconee, Pickens, and Abbeville Counties.

Charleston Promise Neighborhood
Funding will support Charleston Promise Neighborhood’s (CPN) mission of ensuring that residents are engaged in their community and every child is on track to graduate high school and capable of success in college, the military or the workforce. Grant funds will specifically support CPN’s partnership with the Mary Ford Elementary School (MFES) community whose students and families face many challenges including low academic performance. The partnership will focus on improving school climate, maximizing instructional time, and quality talent acquisition and retention. Serving Charleston County

City Year
Funding will support three related elements of City Year’s education and youth development service in the Midlands: 1) City Year Columbia’s Teacher Talent Pipeline Project initiative, developing a pathway for corps members to become certified teachers and teach in local classrooms; 2) increased support for corps members who report stress and burnout from their service in under-resourced schools; and 3) delivery of City Year’s Whole School Whole Child services in three under-resourced local schools where 85% of students come from low-income families. Serving Richland County 

CommunityWorks
Funding will support CommunityWorks, which operates a mission-based, low-income designated community development credit union that specializes in serving families who historically have had limited access to safe financial services. This grant will support the GOALS: Gaining Opportunity to Assets, Loans, and Savings Program, that provides a network of services including financial coaching, savings accounts, consumer loans, and access to asset building programs such as down payment assistance for first time homebuyers or matched savings accounts. Funding will also support an evaluation and capacity building initiative through the Riley Institute at Furman. Serving South Carolina; primarily Greenville and Spartanburg Counties 

Compass of Carolina
Funding will support the Domestic Violence Starts Small program at Compass of Carolina which provides free therapy hours for children and adolescents victimized by witnessing domestic violence in their home. Research indicates that children who grow up around domestic violence and repeatedly experience the cycle of violence suffer long-term consequences: without intervention, they are at risk of repeating these negative behaviors as adults. If not treated, the problem can be passed on from generation to generation, and this destructive cycle also leaves families more likely to be mired in poverty. Serving Greenville County

Edventure
Funding will support EdVenture’s Future Leaders program in Barnwell County, which is designed to impact underserved students in 6th-8th grades and inspire them to develop life and leadership skills to achieve their education, career, and life goals. Students will attend 12 weekly Future Leaders sessions including a college tour and tour of a local manufacturing plant where students will meet and learn from company employees that will share their career stories. Future Leaders strengthens knowledge and emphasizes the development of life and leadership skills through an integrated, project-based learning/teaching strategy, addressing the whole student. Serving Barnwell County

Foothills Family Resources
Funding will support Foothills Family Resources (FFR) which serves individuals residing within areas designated by Greenville County as having high unemployment, low- income, substandard housing and low home ownership. Funding will support the Center for Working Families with a primary emphasis on career development via employment longevity. Participants receive one-to-one coaching engagements including weekly financial education sessions along with topics such as career pathways, resume development and interview techniques. Along with assisting with the entire application process, FFR refers graduates to manufacturers with which there are forged partnerships. Serving Greenville County 

Helping Hands of Georgetown
Funding will support the Time to Change Program, which is a highly structured, collaborative employment and career path program designed to support individuals and families as they move from poverty to stability and independence. This programming has a strong focus on immediate employment placement leading to personal and career growth (a living wage) essential to providing opportunities to break the cycle of poverty. Serving Georgetown County 

Hope Center for Children
Funding will support the Transitional Living Program (TLP) which provides comprehensive support for homeless youth ages 16 to 22, including pregnant or parenting youth. TLP offers safe housing and access to staff that resides in the program to support their development of key life and social skills through the evidence-based Teaching-Family model. Youth receive daily one-to-one skills teaching, comprehensive case management, around-the-clock support, access to mental and physical health care, weekly life-skills classes, transportation to work and school, and support towards obtaining a job and saving for a down payment on their own place.Serving South Carolina (based in Spartanburg County)  

Middle Tyger Community Center
Funding will support the Adolescent Family Life (AFL) Program, which is a comprehensive program designed to break the cycle of generational poverty through early intervention in the lives of pregnant and parenting adolescents and their children. The goals of the program are to increase the educational attainment of the young parent, improve parenting skills, and delay subsequent pregnancies until full adulthood by providing wraparound support for the young family while the mother completes her education. Serving Spartanburg County 

Miss Ruby’s Kids
Funding will support the Parent-Child Home Program (PCHP), which is an evidence- based, early intervention literacy program that educates parents/caregivers on how to use books and toys to strengthen their child’s expressive and receptive language skills, focusing on children between 16 months and 4 years old. Home visits that take place two times a week for two years bridge the achievement gap for low-income children by strengthening the parent-child relationship and ultimately increasing language, literacy, and cognitive skills, and the social-emotional development critical to school success. Serving Georgetown County 

New Directions of Horry County
Funding will support the Back to Life program which helps homeless men, women, and families with children in Horry County break free from the cycle of poverty and homelessness by helping them regain their financial footing, self-confidence, and self-worth and learn to live independently. In addition to providing assistance with food, shelter and safety, New Directions provides individualized case management, helping clients confront and overcome barriers such as limited education and life skills, low availability of permanent full-time jobs, lack of affordable housing, addiction, disability, mental illness, transportation, affordable child care, and access to healthcare. Serving Horry County 

Northside Development Corporation
Funding will support the facilitation of the comprehensive and sustainable redevelopment of the Northside Community of Spartanburg County, which is Spartanburg’s most highly distressed neighborhood and has suffered from a long-term cycle of disinvestment and high concentration of poverty. The overall goal is to ensure a safe, vibrant, sustainable community for all Northside residents regardless of income while prioritizing strategies that support success for children and families, to include access to cradle-to-career education and wraparound supportive service opportunities that ensure economic mobility and financial stability for some of the most vulnerable households in the community. Serving Spartanburg County 

Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands
Funding will support the Youth Violence Prevention Curriculum© (YVP) which was developed by STSM over seventeen years ago as a primary prevention curriculum intended to eradicate sexual violence within communities by illuminating root causes of sexual violence, teaching youth new thought patterns and behaviors toward sexual abuse and, consequently, disrupting the cycle of poverty. YVP employs engaging methods such as presentations, role-play, videos and discussions that address important topics such as healthy boundary setting, communication, dating violence, sexual harassment, and sexual assault. Serving the Midlands (funding is specifically for Clarendon County) 

Soteria Community Development Corporation
Funding will support Soteria at Work which provides transitional job opportunities to people who face significant obstacles to employment, providing financial stability while preparing them to become productive members of society. Soteria At Work addresses three major barriers facing their clients: affordable housing, securing employment at a livable wage and reliable transportation. The men and their families live in the Soteria House, are provided vehicles for transportation, are employed through Soterias’s building deconstruction and reclamation business and are paid an hourly wage that is sufficient to pay for all living expenses as well as start savings programs. Serving South Carolina (based in Greenville County) 

Sunbelt Human Advancement Resources (SHARE)
Funding will support Circles Greenville County, a community initiative that helps families move out of poverty by having volunteers (allies) walk beside them for up to two years. Families create goals to move out of poverty and then begin to implement them with the support of staff and allies. Through this two-generational programming, participants increase their social capital and support network and improve their chances of overcoming barriers such as poor education and/or job skills, lack of affordable and safe housing, lack of a strong public transportation system, and lack of affordable child care services. Serving Greenville County 

Teach My People
Funding will support the mission of Teach My People (TMP) to teach students from Waccamaw schools who come from families who are living in the cycle of generational poverty to overcome academic, economic and social challenges through the delivery of Christ-centered programs that promote spiritual, educational and emotional health from first grade through their graduation of high school, and then into college. This 10 to 12 year partnership with students and their families truly equips them with the knowledge and tools needed to break the cycle of generational poverty. Serving Georgetown County 

Turning Leaf Project
Funding will support the program’s mission of serving recently incarcerated adult men returning to Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties who have been assessed to have a medium to high risk of re-arrest to change their attitude, thinking and behavior so they can complete probation and stay out of prison. Participants are provided tools to be successful after incarceration: a network of support, the thinking skills to make good decisions, strong coping skills for life/work demands, soft work readiness skills, and ultimately a referral to a job and sustained employment in the competitive workforce. Serving Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester Counties

United Ministries
Funding will support extensive, holistic case management and individualized financial education to homeless families with children through two programs: Interfaith Hospitality Network and Employment Readiness. While providing interim housing, the staff delivers financial counsel tailored to the unique needs of each family and encourages participation in a matched savings plan. The on-site Integrated Service Model removes barriers while increasing the likelihood of success through core program components which maximize the resources and opportunities provided to each individual/family. Serving Greenville and Laurens Counties 

United Way of the Piedmont
Funding will support the financial stability navigator program which will provide intensive case management and care coordination to Spartanburg and Union County families who have started on the path to self-sufficiency through the UWP’s community-wide “2,000 in 2,000” Financial Stability Initiative. Barriers to be addressed through this programming include a lack of dependable and affordable transportation to work; unemployment or under-employment; a sudden loss of an income stream; insufficient money management skills and credit understanding; substandard or temporary housing; and no savings to cover unplanned or emergency expenditures. Serving Spartanburg and Union Counties

Village Group’s Plantersville Summer Academy
Funding will support capacity building for the Plantersville Summer Academy (PSA) which serves largely low-income, single-parent families with students in grades 1-9 using certified teachers along with a host of other support staff, including teaching aids, bus drivers, janitors, food services and administrative support. PSA serves students through tutoring, homework assistance, recreation, character education, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics), mentoring, entrepreneurship experiences and meals/snacks.Serving Georgetown County

WINGS
Funding will support WINGS for Kids, which is a proven social and emotional learning education program that teaches economically disadvantaged children skills to improve behavior, decision-making, and healthy relationship building. Funding will help offset the cost of crucial training for 30+ WINGS Leaders at three Title 1 elementary schools in Charleston: North Charleston, Chicora and Burns Elementary schools. These leaders will use the knowledge and experience gained at WINGS and go on to achieve professional success as educators, guidance counselors, youth and business leaders and carry training into their future careers. Serving Charleston County