COMMUNITY GRANT PROGRAM - 2024 RECIPIENT OVERVIEWS

Ability Connection Colorado: Ability Connection Colorado's RAMP Youth Resiliency Project provides trauma-informed, weekly mentoring support that focuses on ensuring a successful transition from school through a stage of career exploration and jobs for youth with disabilities, BIPOC youth, and at-risk youth ages 13-24.

Ability To Access: Ability To Access' Snackability food truck trains youth with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities — a significant underemployed and unemployed demographic — developing important skills and providing work experience to help them gain meaningful employment opportunities after graduation.

ActivateWork: ActivateWork combines IT job training and preparation with wraparound support to help learners complete 15-week boot camp programs focused on hard and soft skills development and find stable employment.

Angels Of America's Fallen: Angels Of America's Fallen provides trauma-informed, client-centered case management, outreach, and referrals, along with support for extra-curricular activities and mentorship at no cost to children of fallen military and first responders.

Antonito Together: Antonito Together's Youth Advisory Committee provides an opportunity for youth to understand their community needs and advocate for change, providing career exploration and mentorship as they engage in and learn about local governmental legislative processes and systems.

Atlas Preparatory School: Atlas Preparatory School is a Title I charter school that provides comprehensive summer programming to its K-12 students to ensure they have access to enriching experiences and trips as they learn, play and explore.

Aurora Public Schools Foundation: Aurora Public Schools is establishing a comprehensive flag football program for middle school girls, providing them with the necessary equipment and uniforms to participate actively and confidently and supporting a pipeline to high school girls flag football participation.

Black Canyon Boys & Girls Club: Black Canyon Boys & Girls Club provides after-school and summer youth mentorship programs for children ages 6-18 and is expanding its summer programming from 40 kids per day to 200 kids per day.

Boys & Girls Clubs of The San Luis Valley: Boys & Girls Clubs of The San Luis Valley's workforce development and career pathways initiative equips predominantly Hispanic youth with the skills and experiences necessary for success in today's job market.

CASA of the Pikes Peak Region: CASA of the Pikes Peak Region provides youth in foster care and those who have been victims of abuse and neglect much-needed consistency and support, critical advocacy and access to basic needs and wraparound services.

Center For Family Outreach: The Center for Family Outreach's Teen Activity Center provides programming focused on school attendance and engagement, academic support and work-based learning activities to combat truancy and support justice-involved youth ages 11-18.

Cheyenne Village: Cheyenne Village's program focuses on outreach for young adults (ages 19-24) with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities who have aged out of the school system, supporting basic physiological needs in order for them to thrive mentally, emotionally and physically.

Childsafe Colorado: Childsafe Colorado provides therapy and support services in English and Spanish to youth survivors of child abuse and is expanding its impact with a second location in Loveland to better serve the northern Colorado community.

Cobbled Streets: Cobbled Streets' Guiding Lights program provides individualized and positive childhood experiences and opportunities for foster youth to mitigate the long-term impacts of trauma and adversity.

Colorado Friendship: Colorado Friendship's IncrEdibles program provides students from food-insecure families with bags of healthy, non-perishable food every Friday to help fill the nutritional gap that exists over the weekend.

Dakota Ridge High School: Dakota Ridge High School (JeffCo Public Schools) is building out its girls high school flag football program to promote physical fitness, build self-confidence, foster teamwork, develop leadership skills, offer college opportunities and increase female representation in football .

Denver Public Schools: Denver Public Schools is hosting non-contact football clinics and flag football programming for middle school students to foster a sense of belonging within the program, connection to their feeder high school, opportunities for new friendships, physical activity and athletic skills development.

Ednium: The Alumni Collective: Ednium: The Alumni Collective's Alumni Connect program connects Denver Public Schools Alumni to current high school students attending their alma maters for career pathway exploration support and mentorship.

Feel The Beat: Feel The Beat provides in-school and afterschool accessible and inclusive movement classes for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and/or living with a disability by utilizing a vibrotactile dance floor that converts sound waves into vibrations.

Food For Hope: Food for Hope's in-school food bank at Pinnacle Charter School provides students and their parents the ability to have autonomy to select fresh and shelf-stable food each week, while removing the barrier of transportation with regards to food access.

Full Circle Restorative Justice: Full Circle Restorative Justice is expanding its Restorative Schools program to Fremont County to work with students and schools to prevent conflict, suspensions, expulsions, and truancy by facilitating restorative practices.

Girls On The Run Of The Rockies: Girls On The Run Of The Rockies is an afterschool program that addresses physical, emotional, and social development during a critical developmental time and uses physical activity and research-based lessons to teach skills to prevent at-risk behaviors and emphasize the potential of every girl.

Horizons Colorado: Horizons Colorado's Mentorship program provides a year-round one-on-one enrichment experience for students (grades 9-12) from under-resourced schools, resulting in all students graduating high school and having a post-graduation plan of post-secondary education, certification programs, apprenticeships, or going straight into the workforce.

Impact on Education: Impact on Education is expanding their school-based Wellness Centers which provide welcoming and calming spaces staffed by a full-time mental health professional for Boulder Valley School District students.

Jeffco Schools Foundation: Jeffco Schools Foundation Career Hubs are physical locations inside Jeffco High Schools dedicated providing career readiness learning, work-based learning opportunities and job shadow, internship, and apprenticeship programs.

Pikes Peak Panthers Football & Cheer: Pikes Peak Panthers Football & Cheer is a youth football program affiliated with USA Football that is working to remove barriers to participation for youth in Colorado Springs.

PlatteForum: PlatteForum's ArtLab program is a year-round, paid internship that pairs under-resourced youth with experienced professional artists to work on real world projects that develop technical, social/emotional, creative, professional, and academic skills.

Sleep in Heavenly Peace: Sleep in Heavenly Peace believes all children deserve a safe, comfortable place to lay their heads and provides fully furnished beds and new bedding to children ages 3-17 who do not have a bed.

Southern Colorado Community Action Agency: Southern Colorado Community Action Agency's National Indian Youth Leadership Program provides culturally relevant programming that promotes positive youth development, builds resilience, and empowers Native American youth to become leaders in their communities while addressing critical issues faced by Native American youth including high rates of substance abuse, suicide, crime, and violence.

Stepping Stones of the Roaring Fork Valley: Stepping Stones of the Roaring Fork Valley empowers young people to thrive through risk prevention and crisis intervention services, including free therapy sessions and access to meals and bus passes.

TEENS, Inc.: TEENS, Inc.'s TeamWorks employment program is an educational outdoor work experience for diverse youth ages 16-20 to engage in environmental and conservation career exploration, training, and on-the-job paid experience.

TGTHR: TGTHR supports youth ages 12-24 experiencing homelessness with overnight shelter, wraparound services and access to basic needs including food, showers, laundry services, clean clothes, and access to medical care.

The Buddy Program: The Buddy Program matches adult volunteers with youth in one-to-one mentoring relationships and provides youth with case management, extracurricular activity scholarships, funds for therapeutic counseling, and referrals to other agencies.

The Center on Colfax: The Center On Colfax's Rainbow Alley provides a safe space for LGBTQ+ youth ages 10-17 to connect with peers, receive support from caring adults, participate in activities, gain leadership skills, and get referrals to helpful resources.

The Family Resource Center: The Family Resource Center's Game Plan for Success Youth Program fills out-of-school time gaps for youth with educational and recreational programming to support holistic youth development.

Vista Peak Prep: Vista Peak Prep is a Title I school in the Aurora Public School Districts that needs new helmets to ensure the proper safety for high school football players.

Vista Ridge High School: Vista Ridge High School (District 49, Colorado Springs) is building out its girls high school flag football program to provide more opportunities for girls to participate in football.

YESS Institute: The YESS Institute's dropout prevention program targets underestimated students who are high risk for dropping out, suspension, or expulsion and builds positive school cultures in which students receive tools and mentorship to achieve equitable academic and social growth.

Young People in Recovery: Young People in Recovery provides services for youth in recovery from substance use disorders and is focused on ensuring Spanish-speaking youth are aware of and can access culturally and linguistically appropriate mental and behavioral health services.

Youth Employment Academy: Youth Employment Academy empowers youth to reach their greatest potential through career pathways programming focused on earning industry-specific certificates, receiving paid hands-on job training, and gaining employment or attending post-secondary education.