Grant Category: Grants
Community Cooks
Somerville, MA
Amount granted: $25,000
Grant year: 2017
Grant category: Human Services
To be used for increased program development activities and boosting effectiveness and efficacy via improved use of technology.
Community Cooks offers free, home-cooked meals to vulnerable populations seeking assistance from direct-service programs. In contributing nutritious and much-needed food, Community Cooks aim to: feed hungry neighbors who might otherwise go without; build a bridge of caring between volunteers and community members in need; and support conditions for program participants to achieve success by alleviating their hunger needs. Community Cooks is a diverse network of 900 volunteers who prepare and deliver 142 home-cooked group meals each month to 43 Greater Boston direct-service organizations, working on a range of social issues including homelessness, domestic violence, substance abuse and issues affecting at-risk youth and low-income seniors.
Resonant Bodies Festival
New York, NY
Amount granted: $20,000
Grant year: 2017
Grant category: Visual Arts and Music
To expand to locations outside of New York City
Resonant Bodies Festival was founded in 2013 to support individual artists, to catalyze the creation of new vocal music, to expand the audience for new vocal music, and to challenge and transform the role of the vocal recitalist. Funds will be used to expand, for the first time ever, to locations outside of New York City: Melbourne, Australia (May 2017), Los Angeles, California (February 2018) and Chicago, Illinois (April 2018). By adding these new geographic regions to the Festival they hope to expand the global network created by RBF for artists to inform, inspire, and enrich one another.
Legal Outreach
Long Island City, NY
Amount granted: $15,000
Grant year: 2017
Grant category: Education
To support its Constitutional Law Debate program
Legal Outreach is a college preparatory organization whose mission is to change the educational and career trajectory of students from underserved communities by (1) providing them with vision, inspiration and motivation, (2) equipping them with the academic skills critical to their future, and (3) supplying them with the support necessary to pursue higher education and professional careers. The law is simply a tool for achieving these objectives. The goal is to equip students with the skills necessary to perform well at the collegiate level, the professional level, and in life. Funds will be used to support its Constitutional Law Debate program, but especially the Debater of the Year Program, which will be held at the Thurgood Marshall Federal Courthouse.
Historic Hudson
Hudson, NY
Amount granted: $25,000
Grant year: 2017
Grant category: Historic Preservation
To preserve and protect the original 42 windows in the Dr. Oliver Bronson House and Estate
Historic Hudson was created to advocate for the preservation and cultural heritage of the historic architecture of the city of Hudson, NY. In 2003, Historic Hudson nominated and received listing for the Dr. Oliver Bronson House and Estate as the only National Historic Landmark in the city of Hudson. The original Bronson federal-style house was built in 1811 and is the earliest extant example of the “Hudson River Bracketed” style. Funds will be used to preserve and protect the original 42 windows in the home.
Friends of Matènwa
Matènwa, Haiti
Amount granted: $50,000
Grant year: 2017
Grant category: Human Services
To support initiatives generated from Haiti’s rural communities.
The mission of Friends of Matènwa is to support initiatives generated from Haiti’s rural communities for the betterment of their education, social justice, health and economic well-being. Funds will be used to support “what needs to be done” in the rural Matènwa communities of Haiti devastated by Hurricane Matthew.
Bed-Stuy Parents Committee
Brooklyn, NY
Amount granted: $13,000
Grant year: 2017
Grant categories: Education, Human Services
To support an African Dance and Drum program.
The Bed-Stuy Parents Committee formed out of a sense that its central Brooklyn neighborhood, Bedford-Stuyvesant, had reached a critical moment of opportunity to reverse the long neglect of its neighborhood public schools. Funds will be used to support enrichment activities at a newly created extended day program for pre-K students at two public school in Bed-Stuy’s District 16 neighborhood. Specifically, funds will be used to support an African Dance and Drum program that allows students to immerse themselves in the joy and vitality of music, language and dance from Africa, the Americas and Caribbean.
Boston Day and Evening Academy
Boston, MA
Amount granted: $12,360
Grant year: 2017
Grant category: Education
To support efforts to codify and develop a set of thoroughly assessed competencies, benchmarks and rubrics that can be shared with schools serving students with similar challenges.
The mission of Boston Day and Evening Academy is to re-engage off-track students in their education preparing them for high school graduation, post-secondary success and meaningful participation in their community. BDEA does this by blending a competency-based model with a student-centered and trauma-sensitive culture. Funds will be used to support efforts to codify and develop a set of thoroughly assessed competencies, benchmarks and rubrics that can be shared with schools serving students with similar challenges as those students attending BDEA. The vision is that these materials will be “open source” – i.e., available to other schools to download from their website for free.
MOUSE
New York, NY
Amount granted: $15,000
Grant year: 2016
Grant category: Education
To support the Mouse Design League, a youth centered design and Technology program that develops emerging leadership, professional and technical skills from Mouse Squads across NYC.
Mouse’s mission is to support technology’s potential for empowering youth from underserved communities to use technology as a force for good. Since 2000, more than 32,000 students across the country have participated in Mouse programs, while creating a multiplier effect through their support and leadership for more than 1.9 million students, teachers and administrators in their schools and communities. Funds will be used to support the Mouse Design League, a youth centered design and Technology program that develops emerging leadership, professional and technical skills from Mouse Squads across NYC.
MIT LIST Visual Arts Center
Cambridge, MA
Amount granted: $6,500
Grant year: 2016
Grant category: Visual Arts and Music
To develop a new program for college-age students from the MIT community and beyond to become trained Museum Guides.
The LIST Visual Arts Center is a creative laboratory that provides artists with a space to freely experiment and push existing boundaries in their art. As the contemporary art museum at MIT, the List Center presents a dynamic program of six to nine special exhibitions in its galleries annually, including a program of evolving site-specific work by emerging artists known as List Projects, as well as a broad range of educational programs, events, and scholarly publications. Funds will b used to develop a new program for college-age students from the MIT community and beyond to become trained Museum Guides.
Hudson Opera House
Hudson, NY
Amount granted: $15,000
Grant year: 2016
Grant category: Historic Preservation
To support the restoration of the Grand Staircase leading from the Center Hall Gallery to the upstairs performance hall.
Built in 1855 as Hudson’s City Hall, the Hudson Opera House houses New York’s oldest surviving theater. Its mission is to promote the arts and to play a pivotal role in the cultural and economic advancement of the region. Funds will be used to support the restoration of the Grand Staircase leading from the Center Hall Gallery to the upstairs performance hall of this historic building.