NBC 4 New York, Telemundo 47 and the Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation on Wednesday unveiled the list of 10 tri-state non-profit organizations awarded grants in this year's Project Innovation challenge.
More than 500 organizations applied this year. The winning groups were:
- Geographic Service: New York City
- Program Overview: The America Needs You (ANY) two-year Fellows Program empowers low-income, first-generation college students with the tools they need to graduate college, succeed in their careers, and compete at the highest level. This includes one-on-one mentorship where each Fellow is paired with a trained volunteer Mentor Coach, a professional who offers 200+ hours of career insight, internship support, and other personal support.
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- Geographic Service: Bronx
- Program Overview: Program for Leaders Advancing their Community's Environment (PLACE) is a youth development program that hires 40-50 young people from The Bronx each summer to lead volunteer groups in environmental restoration projects. PLACE currently operates as a 10-week program with three stages.
- Geographic Service: Bronx and Brooklyn
- Program Overview: The Therapeutic Mentoring Program provides intervention both in-school and out-of-school to equip youth with the tools they need to succeed. This includes individualized therapeutic mentoring happening during the school day with a focus on building trust and positive relationships skills, addressing trauma, and achieving personalized goals with the intention of strengthening students’ academic performance and social emotional well-being.
- Geographic Service: New York City
- Program Overview: HIRE UP training and support for NYC court-involved and at-risk youth was created during the pandemic to help quarantined, court-involved and at-risk youth citywide learn and earn certifications in Digital Literacy and OSHA construction safety. It also enabled youth to access AFJ workshops for mental health, career readiness, leadership development, tutoring, and Legal Rights and Responsibilities.
- Geographic Service: Northern New Jersey
- Program Overview: Write on Sports programs include attending a local sporting event and interviewing guest sports professionals, players or coaches before a game; interviewing a guest in “locker room” mode; brainstorming and narrowing down ideas; discussing different versions of a story; presenting a story to the group and creating a video feature story. Other activities include writing a series of spot stories and a print feature story; Internet research; story revision; word choice; copy editing; keeping a notebook of previously unknown words they find in news stories; creating and keeping up individual blogs; keeping within time limits.
Yonkers Partners in Education: $25,000
- Geographic Service: Westchester
- Program Overview: Yonkers Partners in Education (YPIE) partners with students to ensure they are ready for, enroll in, and complete college. Students in the Breaking Through Covid Fatigue program are assigned a readiness manager and volunteer graduation coach to provide guidance during the school day and come twice a week after school for academic instruction, enrichment and community building.
Family and Children's Association: $20,000
- Geographic Service: Long Island
- Program Overview: The Family and Children’s Association (FCA) Friendly Visiting Program reduces loneliness experienced by frail and homebound seniors and prioritizes the need for social connection and support for them to enhance their overall quality of life and reduce isolation. The Friendly Visiting Program was created to enhance seniors’ emotional well-being and to alleviate the negative effects of social isolation by addressing the challenges of “aging in place” and the changing needs of aging seniors, as well as offering meaningful social interaction.
Barbershop Books, Inc: $20,000
- Geographic Service: New York City
- Program Overview: The Barbershop Book program creates child-friendly reading spaces in barbershops using book recommendations from Black boys and provides early literacy training to barbers. This approach leverages the cultural significance of Black barbershops and the relationship that barbers have with Black families to create early positive reading experiences, that inspire Black boys ages 4-8 to identify as readers.
Family Promise of Warren County: $15,000
- Geographic Service: Western New Jersey
- Program Overview: Family Promise of Warren County’s (FPWC) Volunteer Engagement/Rapid Resolution Project assists people in need of housing services to avoid shelter entry or resolves homelessness with a reduced stay in an emergency shelter. The program is based on a model of using civic, community, and religious buildings and volunteers to provide shelter to families in need on a rotating basis. Each host facility provides overnight shelter for our families, for a week at a time, four to five times a year. FPWC transports them to and from their Day Center each day.
- Geographic Service: New York City
- Program Overview: The SuitUp Business Competition offers schools and youth organizations free virtual/in-person field trips and access to a variety of skills, companies, and career paths not traditionally taught, including corporate mentors from various backgrounds. Students are in the CEO’s seat as they design their solution/pitch and get the opportunity to be mentored by professionals they would never meet in their everyday lives.
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