2021 Grant Recipients
In 2021, the Beacon group made grants totaling $149.6k to 10 nonprofit organizations.
AMERICA ON TECH (AOT)
Founded in 2014 in NYC, AOT seeks to eliminate the racial wealth gaps by creating career pathways into technology for low-income students of color. Since its founding, its programs in NYC and in Los Angeles have grown and served over 3500 young people partnering with over 70 high schools. It targets young people in underrepresented backgrounds between 16-24 years of age living at or below the poverty line. Participants learn the fundamentals of web design and development and create a functional web application. The program provides support for life skills and internships, classes at local companies. The Beacon grant will be used in the Tech Flex program, an immersive nine-month out-of-school program for juniors and seniors which embeds weekly computer science and technology classes at local companies, offers mentorship with industry professionals and provides access to professional development opportunities.
Emma's Torch
Emma's Torch, named for Emma Lazarus, the poet whose words appear at the base of the Statue of Liberty, helps prepare refugees for sustainable careers in the food industry. Originally conceived as a small pop-up café in Red Hook, Emma's Torch success led to a move to a Café on a busy commercial street in Carroll Gardens. Students from places as diverse as West Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Russia follow a two-month paid internship where they learn all aspects of working in a commercial kitchen under the tutelage of an experienced NYC chef. After their internship, they go on to work in restaurant kitchens across the city. Pre-pandemic, the model was financially sound, with 40% of the food donated, in-kind donations. They opened a cafe in Brooklyn Public Library and had plans to open a similar cafe in the DC area. During the pandemic, the organization was able to pivot. They prepared thousands of meals for the homeless in concert with ReThink and became a full-blown social services agency. The Beacon grant will provide general support as Emma’s Torch continues to evolve.
Hudson Guild Arts Program
Hudson Guild is a 125-year-old settlement house in Chelsea that was founded to serve the needs of a growing immigrant population in the then industrial neighborhood of Chelsea. Today, Hudson Guild is an anchor institution in a multicultural community which has expanded to 17 service locations in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen. The Guild operates kindergartens, Head Start programs, community mental health centers, a senior center plus an ambitious community arts program. The Arts Program supports a wide range of theater and visual arts activities with donor support and theater revenues, typically serving more than 2500 people from seniors to preschoolers each year. During the pandemic, the Guild pivoted to online programming, especially for children. The Beacon Group funded the Arts Program in 2015. The 2021 Beacon grant support the art program as they resume theater and other activities.
The Possibility Project, Inc.
The Possibility Project serves diverse groups of teenagers with programs that seek to transform the negative forces in their lives and communities into positive action. This includes four programs: Saturday and After-School programs open to all youth; a Foster Care Program open to youth "in care"; and a Youth Justice Program open to court-involved youth. The Project was launched in New York City by Paul Griffin and a network of more than 40 parents, educators, artists, business professionals and community organizers. As of July 2019, they have provided direct service to more than 1,600 teenagers from more than 100 schools, 15 foster care agencies and 12 alternative-to-incarceration organizations in all five boroughs of NYC. The Project’s youth have written and performed 42 original musicals for more than 70,000 audience members and facilitated the creation of more than 80 youth-led Community Action Projects. They directly serve 160 NYC teens each year. During the pandemic, they moved everything online. The virtual programs attracted additional youth that did not want to be onstage and were happier in the virtual format. Because of this, they plan on live and virtual programs after the pandemic. The Beacon grant will enable them to continue and enhance the virtual meetings and produce more podcasts and web series.
PROJECT IMPACT
Based at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), Project Impact (PI) supports "justice-impacted" youth (that is those who are involved with the justice system) who are reentering school. The program’s goal is to support academic success by providing mentoring and connections to supportive services as Pl students are often homeless or in transitional housing, food insecure, and live below poverty.
PI supports over 125 students through its High School Equivalency (HSE) program, Rikers Island program and Its Associate Degree (AA) program at BMCC. Both the HSE and AA programs pivoted to on-line platforms during the pandemic. The Rikers Island Program did not, but the project director hopes to have it running by September. The HSE program's move to virtual learning has faced challenges as many students live in shelters and have neither computers nor Wifi.
A 2020 Beacon grant helped support 18 students in the AA program, including assistance with wrap-around services to enable students to continue their education. Students will return to the BMCC campus in August 2021. The 2021 Beacon grant will continue to support meeting needs for emergency support and services.
STEM from Dance
Brooklyn-based STEM seeks to reach under-represented minority, low-income girls ages 10 to 18 to inspire them to be creative, confident, and to be leaders, potentially in STEM fields. The program uses the confidence-building aspects of dance to teach skills such as computer programming, animation, electric circuitry and more. The 10-year old program has grown to provide classes to 11 NYC schools, a two-week summer program, and offers an on-line version in multiple countries and cities. Schools pay a support fee to the program; classes are free to students.
During COVID they added an on-line program. This included sending students do-it-yourself kits for electric circuitry for flashing lights, computer programming, and access to on-line programs for animation. The Beacon grant will support implementation of a strategic plan that aims to triple the number of girls served during the school year from 100 to 300 and expand other programs and develop a curriculum to teach other teachers.
The Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, New York Chapter
The Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights ("Young Center") is a Chicago-based non-profit with offices in Texas, Arizona, California, Washington, D.C, and New York. The Center's mission has been to protect and advance the rights and interests of immigrant children according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and state and federal law. The Young Center is a champion for the interests of children who arrive in the United States on their own, from all corners of the world.
This grant will support the New York office which provides services to more than 175 unaccompanied and separated immigrant children a year in deportation proceedings within and around the NY Area. They serve children as young as infants, and as old as 17. The grant will be used for direct services work in New York.
You Gotta Believe
The program works with children who age-out of foster care to provide support and “forever families” as foster children transition to their adult years. This includes working with older YGB children who have been in the system for years with families who adopt them and who are trained to help reduce trauma and risks to these vulnerable children The program recruits parents, trains them, prepares parents and youth to address the issues resulting from years of abuse, neglect, rejection and loneliness, and support them pre- and post -placement to ensure family permanency. During the pandemic, the program shifted from an all "in-person" operation to an exclusively virtual one. To compensate for the lack of personal contact, they increased their one-on-one support sessions with the kids, increased the number and duration of parent training sessions, and initiated virtual gatherings such as coffee hours, evening social hours, support groups.
This year YGB is instituting new mental health services (Adoption Competent Family Therapy).The Beacon's grant will support this and general operations.
YOUTH COMMUNICATION
Youth Communication (YC), a 40-year old organization, helps vulnerable young people strengthen the social and emotional competencies and literacy skills that support school success, career achievement and civic engagement. The program provides a teen writing program and magazine/book publishing operations where teens share their experiences and perspectives with peers and the adults who shape their lives (teachers, counselors, etc.), focusing on students in underserved schools, foster care, and juvenile justice systems, and other at-risk youth.
YC went from a strictly magazine distribution approach and began to create anthologies of its articles and curricula to accompany the use of these articles in classroom settings and with juvenile justice personnel and others who work with youth. They spend time teaching the teachers to use these curricula to improve academic, social and emotional outcomes for students.
During the pandemic, YC moved to virtual coaching, teaching and training and to digital publishing. Since YC had already been building a digital subscriber base, they could quickly shift to an entirely digital distribution system. Many of the students contributed stories about pandemic challenges. YC was able to train more than 300 staff,
The Beacon grant will support general operations and development of a strategic plan to extend their reach and create more virtual outlets.