Recent Community Grant Awards
The Village of Arts and Humanities - $10,000
Village Urban Farm Project: This spring, the Village of Arts and Humanities will create a small urban farm at the corner of 11th and Cumberland. Prompted by the success of an herb garden this past year, the Village has met with Teens 4 Good and the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP), who have agreed to partner in expanded the youth urban agriculture program. POP has agreed to donate an extensive fruit orchard in the spring, and Teens 4 Good has offered to plant a vegetable garden and run their programs at the Village, hiring 15 teens to tend the gardens over the summer and using their current connections to sell the produce at Farmer’s Markets and giving a portion to the Food Trust. The Village will provide outreach and organize summer camps where the teens will work with 5-12 year olds for 6 hours per week to learn about worms, weeding, plants, and basic cooking. Parents are involved too – the teens prepare meals from the gardens for our monthly parent/guardian evenings. We will conduct a nutritional study of corner stores within walking distance, and will be working with them to provide fresh, low-cost produce. Lastly, the gardens conclude with a Fall Harvest where our children organize a parade through the neighborhood, delivery baskets of bounty with recipes and health tips to over 800 residents. The Village Urban Farm will work towards being an sustainable project to have long-term impact on elevating awareness of healthy food through North Philly's largest population – its children.
Squash Smarts, Inc. - $10,000
Fitness Initiative: Our goal is to help every student in grades 8th-12th earn a national squash ranking and expose them to a variety of new peers, competitors and venues. This requires that each student competed in at least four (4) tournaments per year. Similarly, students in grades 6 & 7 are exposed to competitive play through a set schedule of intra- and inter-club matches with local middle and high school teams. Finally, two NUSEA events (Teams and Individuals) bring together students from all of the National Urban Squash & Education programs around the country.
A partial list of the camps our students attended last summer: Racquet Club of Philadelphia Squash Camp, NUSEA Embrace Camp, 1-Day and 5-Day Outward Bound, Navy Squash Camp, Holleran Squash Camp, Geoff Mitchell Squash Camp, Tyler School of Art at Temple, College Settlement Camp, Philly Improv Theatre Camp, Wearable Art Camp at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. Two of our seniors were selected for the Ford Williams Scholarship to the Universal Squash Camp in England. Students are rewarded with their choices of summer camps in specialized interests, all paid for by SquashSmarts.
Daily, our students are provided snacks and refreshment after school. Our goal is to provide healthy and nutritious alternatives for snacks, including vegetables and fresh fruit. Our staff works diligently to arrange and transport students to tournaments and research and register our students for their respective summer camp opportunities.
Lutheran Settlement House - $5,000
CAMP (Children’s and Mom’s Project): CAMP provides medical advocacy services to victims of domestic violence and their children in a pediatric hospital setting. This innovative program was first implemented at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in 2004, and was expanded to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2007. The program was developed in recognition of research showing that one of the most effective ways to prevent child abuse and neglect is intervention in domestic violence, and represents the region’s first on-site domestic violence program in a pediatric setting.
A primary focus of CAMP is the intensive training of clinical and non-clinical staff, as well as medical school faculty and students on the scope of domestic violence, the tools to detect and document abuse, and appropriate care, referral and follow-up. Pediatricians refer patients who have a positive screen for domestic violence to an LSH Counselor, who is available both on-site at the hospital and via pager for crisis intervention and more in-depth counseling services. All services are focused on increasing the safety for both mothers and children, providing supportive counseling services for the care-taker, increasing awareness for caretakers of the impact that witnessing domestic violence has on their children, and connecting children to counseling services where appropriate. The LSH counselor also offers trainings in the neighborhoods surrounding the hospitals in order to raise community awareness of domestic violence issues.