GRANT RECIPIENTS

Women With One Voice 2009 Grant Recipients

The following organizations have been awarded grants for 2009:

From the Community Fund:

1. Cancer Action $2,500

Cancer Action is dedicated to reducing distress and improving the quality of life for those living with, through and beyond cancer; and promotes education, prevention and early detection to reduce the impact of cancer in the greater Kansas City area. This grant will help provide women coping with a cancer diagnosis with personal care support services.  It will target two of the crucial needs by providing wigs, particularly for minority women, scarves and turbans. Cancer Action serves the GKC area by providing service and support to over 2,700 women a year. 

2. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater KC $2,500

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City provides an opportunity for children, from one-parent homes, to reach their full potential by matching them to one-to-one friendships with caring adult volunteers. This grant will go towards the Big Sister-Little Sister Workshop. The program involves hands on activities and group discussion about topics such as body image, self-esteem, puberty and hygiene. The program is constructed to inform and empower the female youth of Kansas City.

3. El Centro, Inc. $3,000

El Centro, Inc. creates and sustains educational, social, and economic opportunities for families. They serve a rapidly growing, low-income, linguistically isolated Hispanic population in Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas. The grant will go towards their Domestic Violence program, Si Se Puede! (Yes, You Can!) to continue to provide a place for women victims and their children to turn to for help. Since the program began, El Centro, Inc. has provided a variety of core victim services to 1,423 unduplicated women and children victims.

4. KC Free Health Clinic $3,000

The Kansas City Free Health Clinic promotes health and wellness, by providing quality services, at no charge, to people without access to basic care. The grant will go towards implementing the ‘Making Proud Choices’ program, an evidence-based STI/HIV and teen pregnancy prevention intervention targeting at-risk young women as a component of its Youth Health Initiative. The clinic will serve two local non-profits, Synergy and Veronica’s Voice. Synergy provides shelter, counseling and transitional services for runaways and homeless youth and Veronica’s Voice is a recovery program that provides peer, survivor-run services to sexually exploited women. The ‘Making Proud Choices’ program is designed to empower young women to change their behavior in ways that will reduce their risk for HIV/STI and pregnancy.

5. Mattie Rhodes Center $3,000

The Mattie Rhodes Center bridges cultures and communities through arts, mental health and social services. They empower individuals and families through culturally competent, bilingual services in a respectful and compassionate environment.

The grant is for their Nuevo Dia (“New Day”) Domestic Violence Program to help reduce the cycle of violence involving Latina and Spanish-speaking women through a holistic strengths-based model of treatment that includes therapy and case management services. The program provides individual and family therapy, crisis intervention, case management, legal advocacy, personal advocacy, outreach, and education.

6. Women’s Employment Network $1,000

The Women’s Employment Network (WEN) assists women in raising their self-esteem and achieving economic independence through sustained employment. The grant will help support their Employment Readiness & Career Transition Training Program. With a focus on self-esteem and personal responsibility, WEN is dedicated to providing women with comprehensive employment preparation and career transition training along with professional assessment and social support services to help remove personal barriers to their economic success. The staff works with women and provides the counseling, tools, and information that will help them achieve their employment and career goals so that they may get the jobs that they deserve to build a better future for themselves and their families.

The Seventh Annual Grant from JULIE’S FUND:

Accessible Arts, Inc. $5,000

Accessible Arts, Inc. is an arts and disabilities organization that champions the arts for children with disabilities and advocates for the arts. This grant will help underwrite the Discovery Trails 2010: Outdoor History Adventures with Lewis and Clark Corp of Discovery Program. Teens that are blind or visually impaired will venture west from Kansas City on a history-oriented adventure to the Pacific coast and back. Three weeks of outdoor living and trail travel will immerse teens in the extraordinary adventures of Lewis and Clark’s band of explorers who shaped our national aspirations and inspired three generations of pioneers to move ever westward. Expanding girls’ and young women’s experiences and aspirations is a major focus of the Discovery Trails Program. Teens will travel in the company of skilled outdoors people and professional artist-educators whose task is to engage their imaginations and stimulate their creativity..