MEDIA RELEASE: May 2, 2000

Rhode Island Foundation awards $1.4 million for projects to enrich lives of children and families

In its first grantmaking meeting of 2000, The Rhode Island Foundation Board of Directors approved 23 projects in its focus area “Children and Families,” with projects benefiting efforts in advocacy and policy development, health, strengthening families, and child care.  An additional five grants in education and four in the arts brought the total amount awarded to $1.4 million.

The largest grant, $125,000, was awarded to Rhode Island Kids Count, for continuing support of its efforts to advance children’s issues by collecting and disseminating information on the status of Rhode Island children and printing of its annual Factbook.

Two projects each received $100,000 grants: WRNI: Public Radio Rhode Island for continued support of its local programming and the development/production of a Rhode Island-based public affairs program, and It Takes a Village, a new project of the Woonsocket School Department that seeks to work with existing community supports to assure that Woonsocket children have early childhood interventions that will contribute to their success in school.

ADVOCACY AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT
Children and families projects in the areas of advocacy and policy development include:

• Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College, $50,000, for second year support of the Institute’s advocacy efforts for economic security for all low-income Rhode Islanders.
• Transitioning to Independence program at Ocean State Center for Independent Living, $50,000, which seeks to change state policy surrounding the placement of individuals with severe disabilities by demonstrating a considerable cost savings of placement in less restrictive living environments than the nursing homes in which they currently reside.
• Structural Solutions to Poverty project of the George A. Wiley Center, $40,000, for continued support of this lead advocacy group’s campaign.
• Health Care Organizing Project of Ocean State Action Fund, $40,000, for continued support of this project that represents consumers in the ongoing statewide discussion of the state’s health care system.
• Lead-Safe Providence Campaign of the Childhood Lead Action Project, $26,116, for continued support of the project’s work to eliminate childhood lead poisoning in Providence through education, parent support, and advocacy.
• Contraception Access Project of the Women’s Health & Education Fund, $25,000, for continued support of its statewide project to provide free contraception and medical counseling to low-income women.

HEALTH/MENTAL HEALTH
Funded projects that address health/mental health issues for children and families include:

• Campaign for a new emergency room facility at South County Hospital, $50,000, to enable this organization which serves the fastest growing part of the state to better serve the 38,000 individuals who visit its emergency room annually.
• Draw a Breath/Providence School Partnership, $50,000, to expand the asthma education and support a coalition of organizations provides to low-income Providence children and families.
• Pawtucket Smiles Dental Program of the Pawtucket School Department, $50,000, to expand the successful school-based Providence Smiles dental program to school clinics serving students at three Pawtucket pubic schools.
• Teen Clinic of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, $50,000, for continued support of efforts to reduce pregnancy rates and the incidence of sexually-transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS among Providence teenagers, as well as for the addition of on-site mental health services for teens.
• HELP Lead Safe Center, $30,000, for second year support of its efforts to create an effective management information/tracking system for its work and to evaluate the Center’s services to Providence families affected by lead poisoning in their children.

STRENGTHENING FAMILIES
The following projects address the Foundation goal of strengthening families:

• Central Falls Family Support Center of Children’s Friend and Service, $50,000, for construction of a building in Central Falls to expand the array of support services offered for the past five years to families in Central Falls and Pawtucket.
• Woonsocket Children’s Initiative of Connecting for Children & Families, $40,000, for continuing support of this initiative and its goal to ensure that Woonsocket children start school ready to learn and meet with academic success in elementary school.
• Re-Inventing Cain: A Teen Care Continuum for Boys program of the Rhode Island Youth Guidance Center, $25,000 for second year support of this program to bring together agencies
  in Pawtucket and Central Falls for provision of coordinated social services to at-risk male youth.
• Washington County Juvenile Justice Project of South Shore Mental Health Center, $25,000, for second year support of this community-based family mediation and counseling service that works to keep emotionally and behaviorally-troubled youth within their local communities and out of the juvenile justice system.
• New Alzheimer’s Care Center for Cornerstone Adult Services, $25,000, to assist this Warwick-based agency with the construction of a new, larger facility to serve the growing population of individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease.
• Male Responsibility Program of the Urban League of Rhode Island, $25,000, for continued support to increase the self-confidence and self-esteem of young fathers in Providence through mentoring, education, job readiness training, and life skills training.
• Youth Place of the East Providence Community Center, $25,000, for start-up costs of this multi-purpose youth center that will emphasize the important role youth will play in the governance of the center and its programming.

CHILD CARE
Funded projects relating to child care, in addition to the Woonsocket “It Takes a Village” project, are:

• Family Child Care Training Project of Children’s Friend & Services, $40,000, for this training and support services program that assists low-income persons to become certified child care providers and increases the availability of quality child care in Pawtucket, Central Falls, and Providence.
• New Block Island community center, a project of the Block Island Economic Development
  Foundation, $25,000, toward construction costs of the center which will serve the child care, senior citizen and meeting space needs of the island’s year-round population.

EDUCATION AND ARTS GRANTS
In addition, five “off-cycle” education projects and four arts project were approved at the April Board of Directors meeting. 

They include:

Education

• Mental Health Initiative, The Providence Center, $75,000
• Family Reading Program, Providence Public Library, $50,000
• Middle School Truancy Project, Tides Family Services, West Warwick, $50,000
• Rhode Island Reach Out and Read, St. Joseph’s Health Services, $30,000
• Family Engagement Coordinator for Highlander School, The Big Picture Company, Providence, $25,000
  The Arts
• Youth Arts Education Program, The Providence Black Repertory Company, $30,000
• Free-for-All Saturdays, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, $30,000
• Providence New Play Festival, Trinity Repertory Company, $20,000
• Living Museum/Urban Build, Project New Urban Arts, Providence, $16,000

The Rhode Island Foundation Board of Directors will hold two additional grant-making meetings this year, in August when the focus will be on economic/community development projects, and in December when the focus will be on projects in education and in the arts.