The Magazine
Dallas
Dallas Tennis Association’s mission is to provide opportunities to improve the mental and physical well-being of the community through education and the sport of tennis. Their vision and emphasis are to build sustainable programs and facilities that provide access to education and tennis for all people in Greater Dallas Community, now and for future generations.
Funding from The Dirk Nowitzki Foundation supports Team Nowitzki. Team Nowitzki, DTEA Excellence Team, are the top 15-20 best young tennis players in the program. These students, ages 8-17, are provided uniforms and travel 4-6 times per year for training and competition provided by the USTA Foundation’s National Junior Tennis and Learning program. The high-performance program meets 6-8 hours/week, and provides a structured environment in which the children thrive. Report cards are monitored, tutoring is provided if needed, and all children must do required community service hours. Tennis instruction is provided by certified tennis instructors. Off-court time is spent working on Life Skills, ACE, and STEAM subjects with trained instructors.
Dallas
Education Opens Doors’ mission is to equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to realize their college and career potential. Education opens doors exists to open doors for middle and early high school students who are predominately students of color, students living in low-income communities, or students who may be the first in their family to attend college.
Funding from The Dirk Nowitzki Foundation supports the Roadmap to Success program in middle and high schools across Dallas County and the surrounding area. The program utilizes a train-the-trainer model to equip teachers with tools they need to effectively increase expectations, motivation, and college knowledge in their classrooms. The Roadmap to Success program provides students with 900 additional minutes of active college planning and career preparation discussion. Through the Roadmap to Success program, Education Opens Doors aims to improve graduation rates and increases postsecondary completion for our most at-risk students, setting them on the path to college and career success.
Dallas
Family Gateway’s mission is to provide stability and life-changing supportive services for families with children experiencing homelessness. Family Gateway follows an assessment-based model in order to match a family’s need with the appropriate intervention, and honors and serves all types of families. Family Gateway assesses housing eligibility and assists families with connecting to supportive housing. Once a family enters the supportive housing program, Family Gateway follows them into the community to provide wrap around case management services to help them avoid a return to homelessness.
Funding from The Dirk Nowitzki Foundation supports Shelter Overflow. When all family shelters are full and a family is assessed, and found to be in need of emergency shelter, Family Gateway takes responsibility for placing families in short-stay hotels in order to keep families from returning to sleep in their cars or other unsafe environment. Family Gateway then follows-up daily with families and transfers them into shelter when a room becomes available. This practice requires a pool of readily available resources so the Assessment and Diversion team may activate a short stay hotel 24/7.
Kenya
Inspired Space’s mission is to provide the most vulnerable students in Kenya with access to quality education by providing secondary school scholarships and by helping schools address infrastructure needs. A special emphasis is on orphans and girls.
Funding from The Dirk Nowitzki Foundation supports scholarship support for schoolgirls. Scholarships enable these students to graduate with a high school diploma. But beyond just an education Inspired Spaces is filling a significant need for enrichment opportunities for its scholars to expose them to collaborative efforts, critical thinking exercise, exploratory discussions and leadership guidance. Another aspect to the funding is providing these school girls with menstrual sanitary products for the entire school year. In addition to providing products there will be coordinating education programs and support groups among students in different schools to help with menstrual health education and support. Special attention is given to the challenges girls face in schools so that there is equal opportunity and trying to overcome financial and societal barriers that prevent children from attending school.
Dallas
Girls Embracing Mothers’ mission is to empower girls in grades K-12 with mothers in prison to break the cycle of incarceration and lead successful lives with vision and purpose. GEM is the only identified organization in Northeast Texas that offers services focused solely on girls with mothers in prison. GEM recognizes the humanity in the marginalized society of incarcerated mothers and their daughters and work to build solidarity within this population. GEM creates space for intergenerational healing of girls with incarcerated mothers – a vulnerable population of children who are among the most at risk, yet least visible, populations of children.
Funding from The Dirk Nowitzki Foundation supports the Pearl Program. The Pearl Program aims to reduce the trauma suffered by girls as a result of the mother’s incarceration through increased communication and group visitation. GEM works with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to identify mothers in prison interested in enrolling their daughters in the program. The first Saturday of each month, GEM makes the 4.5 hour round trip from Dallas to women’s prisons in Gatesville to take a group of girls to visit their mothers for an enhanced 4-hour visitation. Visits include facilitated discussions between mothers and daughters that are open and honest and revolve around critical life issues while building the mother-daughter bond.
Dallas
Heart House’s mission is to provide safety, education and opportunity to refugee and underprivileged children. Their vision is to use education as a catalyst to combat poverty and level the playing field for some of the most vulnerable children in our city. Heart House has worked with refugees towards acculturation, allowing a safe space for the non-verbal emotional right brain to communicate with the verbal left brain, where they can talk about and express emotions and experiences in a constructive way. Heart House provides interventions and support services to move students from the mindset of chaos to an oasis of calm.
Funding from The Dirk Nowitzki Foundation supports The Head, Heart, and Hands (H3) Program for Refugee Children. H3 for the Head: provides daily homework assistance and learning centers focused on reading, writing, word work, vocabulary, math, science, social studies, art and technology. H3 for the Heart: enrichment activities include outdoor play and social-emotional education, to help develop lifelong characteristics, such as resiliency, persistence, curiosity, creativity, leadership and collaboration. H3 for the Hands: the service-learning component of H3 includes a student of the month program called Love and Lead, birthday celebrations, and cultural potlucks to help build relationships.
Dallas
Perot Museum of Nature & Science’s mission is to inspire minds through nature and science. They strive to be an extraordinary resource and catalyst for science learning through innovative, highly accessible experiences that broaden understanding of our world and improve community achievement.
Funding from the Dirk Nowitzki Foundation supports the TECH (Tinker Engineer Create Hack) Trucks Program. Disparities in access to science education and technology demarked by income, geography, language, culture and gender are a well-documented phenomenon. Since 2015 the Perot museum has been vigorously addressing the disparity by providing STEM education in underserved, resource-poor, marginalized communities in DFW through TECH trucks, a community focused mobile outreach program.
The TECH truck visit family festivals, after school programs, public libraries, schools and community centers. Research shows that options for advancement in Dallas are divided along racial, economic and social lines. Studies have shown that 90% of Dallas’s impoverished children are concentrated in specific areas in the city. The Perot Museum helps tackle educational inequities by deploying the TECH trucks to those communities. The TRUCKS take programming beyond the walls of the Museum directly to people that traditionally may not ever visit the museum or have access to hands-on, informal STEM education activities.
Fort Worth TX
Fort Worth Youth Orchestra’s (FWYO) mission is to encourage artistic excellence in a nurturing environment by providing the highest quality orchestral training and performance opportunities to qualified students, from grades K-12, while making its programs accessible to underrepresented youth through financial aid and outreach. The FWYO has become one of the North Texas’ most prestigious arts organizations with a programmatic scope that includes two full symphonic orchestras, two string training orchestras, a Suzuki Strings and Piano Program, chamber music ensembles and Early Childhood Music.
Funding from the Dirk Nowitzki Foundation supports the FWYOto cultivate and nurture talented young musicians from all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds represented in the Fort Worth area, an area rich in diversity and culture. The work is not only creating the next generation of musicians, patrons of the arts and responsible global residents but also filling in the music education curriculum that is much needed in our community but no longer offered in most of the public schools.
Dallas
Education Opens Doors equips students, starting as early as middle school, with a self-guided student manual titled Roadmap to Success, which is composed of college and career knowledge in addition to soft skills not taught in traditional academic courses.
They collaborate with schools and organizations, collectively impacting students, to increase their college expectations and attainability. The student manual comes with program implementation support, correlating instructional tools, and engaging lesson plans aligned to the manual and the specific needs of the school.
Democratic Republic of Congo
The Dikembe Mutombo Foundation (DMF) is dedicated to improving the health, education and quality of life for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The foundation strives to accomplish this goal through an emphasis on primary health care and disease prevention, the promotion of health policy, health research, and increased access to health care education for the people of the Congo.
The DMF is looking to improve and extend those lives that are at risk for Malaria, measles, tuberculosis, pneumonia and other common diseases that can be prevented or eradicated.
Lesotho
Habitat for Humanity is seeking funding to Increase access to decent shelter and sanitation, and training for vulnerable and orphaned children in Lesotho, reducing their vulnerability and increasing self-sustainability. The overall goal of the 3-month project is to provide shelter and sanitation to improve overall living conditions and to provide training on secure tenure and inheritance rights, maintenance and home hygiene.
The object is to build 5 two-room homes with 5 improved ventilated pit latrines and also train 5 caregivers, 5 families on the construction process, basic home maintenance etc.
The key priority among orphan and vulnerable children is a need for decent and safe low-cost housing. Lesotho faces challenges with poverty, food insecurity and HIV/AIDS being amongst the top issues facing the country with an estimated 27.5% of the population being at risk of multi dimensional poverty.
Fort Worth
The Women’s Center inspires, teaches and empowers women and families to overcome violence, crisis and poverty. They provide services in three primary program areas: Rape Crisis & Victim Services, Employment solutions and General Counseling.
This year the Women’s Center is requesting funding for their supplies for the Crisis Intervention for Child Sexual Abuse Victims Program, which provides 24-hour crisis services to children victimized by sexual abuse and their non-offending significant others. Embodied in the crisis intervention is volunteer recruitment and training, crisis line technology and comfort and security supplies for child victims and their families.
This year, The Women’s Center’s Crisis Intervention for Child Sexual Abuse Victims program expects to serve a total of 213 child sexual abuse victims and 423 significant others through the Crisis Hotline and at Hospital Rape Exams.
Dallas
The mission of Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support is to end the epidemic of domestic violence against women and children by stopping individual victimization and reducing the devastating impact of family violence through safety, shelter and expert services to battered women and their children.
Genesis is seeking funding for their Emergency Shelter Children’s Program where they reverse the damaging effect of abuse on these young victims and ensure future families are free from the horrors of domestic violence. The program focuses on the healing and development of each child emotionally, socially and academically. They provide on-site day and after-school care, K-12 school and bran-new pre school to clinical counseling and case management where a holistic approach is implanted to help each child recover from the trauma. The ultimate goal of the program is for children to show age-appropriate, healthy behaviors and feelings. Another major goal of the program is strengthening the child’s relationship with their mother who is and will be the most important factor in the child’s resiliency.
Dallas
Youth with Faces is formed to benefit the residents of the Dallas County Youth Village in areas where Dallas County Juvenile Services is unable to fund or provide the necessary resources. They are dedicated to helping juvenile offenders, ages 10 to 17years old, reach their law abiding potential and to divert them from further involvement with the juvenile justice system or progression to greater offenses. They are seeking funding for their Direct service programs such as the Skills Advancement for Vocation and Employment program which they partner with El Centro College and the North Texas Food bank, Financial Literacy program which is run by Students in Enterprise from the University of Texas at Dallas, Mentoring program and Speaker program to name a few. Through Youth with Faces and their community partners they are trying to help youth in trouble turn their lives in a positive direction through education and healthy life changes.
Irving
Brighter Tomorrow is working towards reducing violence in our communities and empower victims of domestic and sexual violence by providing safe shelter and support services. They are seeking support of their Children’s Services domestic violence and sexual assault programs. The goal of the program is to break the cycle of violence by educating children who have been the victim of or witness to domestic violence in how to deal with their environment and emotions in a healthy, positive and appropriate way to increase their sense of safety. The Children’s Service Program has always been a key priority and last year they housed 491 children ranging from babies to teenagers. Without treatment, these children are at significant risk for delinquency, substance abuse, school dropout and difficulties in their own relationships.
Brighter Tomorrows currently operates two full-service emergency safe shelters in Grand Prairie and Irving that can house up to 72 residents in total, a 24-hour crisis line, the Counseling and Resource Center, a transitional housing program and two thrift stores. They provide shelter, food, clothing, support groups, budgeting and life skills classes, counseling, hospital and court accompaniment and help facilitate applications for protective orders – all free of charge.
Arlington
The mission of Arlington Life Shelter is that it offers a pathway to self-sufficiency for homeless men, women and children from the North Texas area by providing food and shelter, family services and assistance in securing and maintaining employment.
The shelter is seeking funding for replacement of wood bunk beds with smaller metal beds in family dorms to increase shelter capacity for families and decrease the incidence of bed bugs. Replacing the existing bunks with smaller metal bunks would allow the installation of safety rails and ladders designed for children. The dorms could be personalized for the children, allowing space for play and study.
The Arlington Life Shelter is the only facility in Arlington and the mid-cities and it’s one of the few shelters in the DFW area with a work requirement. The agency’s philosophy is that in order to regain self-sufficiency, one must have the ability to secure and maintain employment to produce a steady income. The Arlington Life Shelter has served the homeless since 1987.
Dallas
Community Partners of Dallas helps protect and restore our community’s abused and neglected children by providing resources to the caseworkers of Child Protective Services. They serve the children in Dallas County and served more than 20,000 children last year. This year they are seeking funding for the Kids in Crisis Program that serves children with open CPS cases who live in their own homes but are at risk of abuse, or are in the care of relatives. This program is a lifeline for children with needs that might otherwise fall through the cracks of available resources.
The program also provides funding for critical needs such as clothing, transportation, enrichment activities, housing, medical expenses and therapy for children in need.
This program is particularly important for these children because, unlike children in foster care, relatives who take in children receive no financial support from the state. More than 78% of the children they serve live in families with annual incomes of less than $14,000.
Last year, the Kids in Crisis program served 8,119 children.
Dallas
The Family Place’s mission is to eliminate family violence through intervention and proactive prevention, extensive community education, advocacy and assistance for victims and their families.
Family Place is the Dallas area’s leading organization delivering proven programs that addresses emotional and physical abuse and incest. All services are free – both residential and non-residential – that prevent violence and fully support women, children and men on their path from fear to safety. This year The Family Place is looking to build state-of-the-art fall zones around playground equipment on their Safe Campus. They have four Safe Campus playgrounds serving all of the children living on their Safe Campus including those in their Child Development Center, School-Age Program and K-2 Learning Center. This project will increase the safety of the playgrounds and enhancing the safety of these programs that work with their youngest victims and are essential to stopping the cycle of family violence.
Dallas
The mission of Mental Health America (MHA) is to lead the community in improving mental health through advocacy and education. MHA is applying for a grant for their WHO program (We Help Ourselves) to help children ages 4-18 learn to avoid school violence, assault, bullying, peer pressure, child abuse, sexual harassment and other forms of victimization. The program trains counselors, nurses, teachers, advocates and volunteers to present their curricula based on a sensitive, non-threatening methodology. The funding would allow MHA to provide training and curriculum to seven additional school campuses in North Texas and educate 2,400 more children about how to protect themselves from physical, social and psychological abuse.
Africa
Project TBD
Dallas
The Women’s Center inspires, teaches and empowers women and families to overcome violence, crisis and poverty. They provide services in three primary program areas: Rape Crisis & Victim Services, Employment solutions and General Counseling. This year the Women’s Center is requesting funding for their Play it Safe! Child sexual abuse prevention program in Tarrant County. The Play it Safe! Program is important because it teaches children to recognize, resist and report abuse. It provides a safe-forum for children to disclose past or current abuse and teaches care-giving adults the signs of child sexual victimization and how to respond to disclosure of abuse. The request is to fund program supplies, including canvas carrying cases for program trainers, parent preview program DVD’s etc. During the 2013-2014 school year, Play it Safe! was implemented in all 43 Fort Worth ISD middle and high schools. In 2013 it also served a record 87,824 children in 187 schools in 17 districts.
Dallas
The mission for The Concilio is to build stronger communities by empowering parents to improve the education and health of their families. They are looking for funding for parent engagement education and health education for families. The specific project is Parents Advocating for Student Excellence (PASE). PASE’s goal is to improve graduation rates by preventing dropout through partnering with parents, who learn their role and responsibilities within the educational system. When parents complete their PASE program, their children have decreased tardiness and increased school attendance. Children of PASE families are more likely to graduate from high school (90.2% rate) and attend post-secondary education (78% rate) than their peers. The grant funding will support the implementation of the PASE program at approximately 30 schools in Dallas, Denton, Rockwall and Tarrant Counties in North Texas.
Dallas
Nexus Recovery Center operates to serve as a link to sobriety, independence and dignity for low-income women and their families affected by addiction. Nexus is focused on the unique recovery of a woman with a trauma based addiction. The organization also focuses on children of women recovering from addiction with individualized play therapy. They are looking for funding to plant trees on their playground, provide playground equipment and upgrading their basketball court for the 441 children. The goal of the project is to provide the children at Nexus with a playground that is shaded to protect them from the summer sun and heat and a basketball court and basketballs for them to get exercise and learn the value of a team sport. The project is important because the children that are at Nexus have had little opportunity to have age appropriate play time with friends of the same age. Nexus allows children a safe environment for play and self-expression and a place for them to be children and not worry about the addiction their mother is recovering from.
Dallas
The mission of alley’s house is to empower teen mothers and their children to achieve independence through support services, education and mentoring. alley’s house offers both in-office and in-home tutoring to ensure that all teen mothers have an opportunity to receive the on-on-one assistance they need regardless of their living situation. One tutor is assigned to each teen mom, ensuring that all individual differences can be taken into consideration. Their clients range in age from 13-21 and an average of 18 years of age. The specific program they are requesting funding for is the GED tutoring Program for Teen Mothers. The tutoring at alley’s house prepares these teen age mothers to take the GED test and not be in the statistic of 85% of teen age mothers that drop out of school once they have their baby. alley’s house is the only organization in the Dallas area that provides counseling, a mentoring program, tutoring program, life skills workshop, parenting education, on-the-job office training and comprehensive case management services for teen mothers.
Dallas
Child & Family Guidance Center has provided comprehensive and quality mental health services to North Texas communities for over 100 years. They envision a future where all children and families have access to mental health resources needed to grow into healthy, contributing members of society. Services include individual, family and group therapy, play therapy, diagnostic testing and psychiatric consultation primarily for low-income and “working poor” families. Funding requested is for the Intensive Services for Children with Mental Illness Program. This program provides clinical services to children with the disability of serious mental illness to enable them to successfully function in their home and school environments and to effectively transition to adulthood. This program served 4,500 children last year. 95% of the children served are living below 200% poverty level. The project is important to prevent diagnosis such as major depressions, bipolar disorder or psychotic disorders.
Dallas
Community Partners of Dallas is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring safety and restoring dignity and hope to abused and neglected children by providing resources and support to the caseworkers of Dallas County Child Protective Services. The Kids in Crisis Program serves children with open CPS cases who live in their own homes but are at risk of abuse, or are in the care of relatives. This program is a lifeline for children with needs that might otherwise fall through the cracks of available resources. This program served 6,508 children last year. The Kids in Crisis Program provides funding for critical needs such as clothing, transportation, enrichment activities, housing, medical expenses and therapy for children in need. These needs include monthly bus passes to facilitate parents ability to get to work and meet other obligations; rent and rent deposits; summer camps, musical instruments and other special lessons for children, medical expenses including prescriptions, glasses and dental work. This program is particularly important for these children because, unlike children in foster care, relatives who take in children receive no financial support from the state. More than 80% of the children we serve live in families with annual incomes of less than $14,000.
Dallas
For nearly 25 years, Vogel Alcove has provided free quality child development services for Dallas’ youngest victims of poverty: homeless children 6 weeks to 5 years old. Vogel Alcove is the only free comprehensive early childhood education program in the city of Dallas whose primary focus is to provide free childcare and case management for children and their families residing at 18 local emergency shelters, domestic violence shelters and housing programs. DNF funding would be used for the Early Education Development which aims to develop cognitive, motor and literacy skills in order to prepare children to enter school at the same level as their peers. Including screens for developmental delays and/or disorders, and intervention if needed ( incl speech, play and physical therapy). Also family support to address the mental, emotional and social needs of the children and families who have suffered trauma caused by violence and poverty.
Africa
Habitat for Humanity are a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian ministry founded on the conviction that every man, woman and child should have a decent, safe and affordable place to live. HFH builds with homeowners and volunteers under trained supervision. With support from the DNF, Habitat for Humanity was able to serve 17 families in Senegal last year and the impact will continue to be felt for years. Children now have a safe and healthy home in which to grow, study, play and thrive. Habitat for Humanity proposes to include Malawi and Uganda this year because of the high needs created by AIDS and the orphans left in its wake. In these projects, HFH will not only build fully subsidized homes but also offer training on HIV prevention, basic health and hygiene. Mosquito nets will also be distributed in all three countries to help combat malaria.
Dallas
ChildCareGroup is requesting funding to provide child care scholarships to needy children. ChildCareGroup serves more than 500 infants, toddlers and preschoolers (ages 0-5) annually from low-income families in the Dallas area. ChildCareGroup’s strategic focus is expansion of quality child care, especially infant care and partially subsidized care for working poor families. Its six child development centers provide services at little or no cost to families living at or below the federal poverty guidelines, while working to eliminate the negative effects that poverty has on early child development and learning. DNF funding would be used to expand the Early Childhood Development and School Readiness Education Programs. Child Care Group is focused on addressing two key issues related to the care and education of young children within our centers: the importance of relationships and the availability of safe, nurturing, school readiness programs for low-income young children. Families living at or below the poverty line often have no other choice but to put their children into adequate or unsafe child care. Simply providing children a place to stay while their parents work is not nearly enough. The goal is to educate, inspire and shape these young minds for future success. Poverty prevents families from investing the necessary time and financial resources in their children’s development. Child Care Group operates seven early care and school readiness education centers serving 595 at risk infants, toddlers and preschool children ages 0-5 from low income families in the Dallas’ most poverty stricken neighborhoods, including East & South Dallas, Oak Cliff, Irving and Garland.
Fort Worth
The Parenting Center’s mission is “to provide family members and professionals with the tools, resources and services to build successful families.” DNF funding would be used to help fund counseling for mentally or emotionally disabled children, especially those from low income families. The Parenting Center requested $5k to help bridge the gap between the amount that low income families can pay for their children to receive counseling and the cost to The Parenting Center to provide this service.The goal of counseling for children experiencing emotional and behavioral disturbances is to enable them to rise above their symptoms, circumvent long-term negative effects, and become healthy adults thus improving individual functioning. Examples of individual functioning as a result of therapy may include improved mood and self esteem, increased involvement in social activities and ability to relate with others; improved ability to verbalize feelings and needs rather than act out aggressively and uncontrollable outbursts.
Dallas
Kid Net Foundation is requesting funding for the Girls Treatment Program. It serves adolescent girls in custody of Child Protective Services (CPS) between the ages of 10-17, in need of therapeutic residential care and specialized professional services. These girls have experienced trauma, including but not limited to, neglect, abandonment and physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Participants in the program comes to us from hospitals and treatment centers and/or failed foster care or adoptive placements. They suffer from low esteem, poor coping skills, eating disorders, depression and distrust of adults and/or the system(s) they came from. Through therapy, educational opportunities and a family environment, the program helps residents adjust to living in a less restrictive environment and gives them the ability to eventually live with a foster family or on their own. The Girls Treatment Program gives CPS the only licensed residential placement option in Dallas County for young ladies between the ages of 10-17.
Fort Worth
The Women´s Center seeks to inspire, teach and empower women and families to overcome violence, crisis and poverty. Every year almost 100,000 women, men and children of all ages, ethnic and economic background are served by The Women’s Center. They seek hope, emotional healing, solutions to family crises, and help finding a job or a path to a better life. The serious problems they bring are devastating – rape and child sexual abuse, unemployment, wages too low to keep a family together, deep depression, and desperate situations created by family violence and poverty. DNF funding would be used to Purchase new dolls for their Play it Safe! child sexual abuse prevention program. Play it Safe! is a lifeline for the victimized children reached by the program. The dolls insure the trainers to have the best tools to carry out the important work when discussing a childs private parts. These are custom made and are used as visual aid alongside researched and tested scripts and videos. This is one of the most specialized, age appropriate child abuse prevention training programs for children ages pre-school through 12th grade.
Africa
Habitat for Humanity are a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian ministry founded on the conviction that every man, woman and child should have a decent, safe and affordable place to live. HFH builds with homeowners and volunteers under trained supervision. With support from the DNF, Habitat for Humanity was able to serve 17 families in Senegal last year and the impact will continue to be felt for years. Children now have a safe and healthy home in which to grow, study, play and thrive. Habitat for Humanity proposes to include Malawi and Uganda this year because of the high needs created by AIDS and the orphans left in its wake. In these projects, HFH will not only build fully subsidized homes but also offer training on HIV prevention, basic health and hygiene. Mosquito nets will also be distributed in all three countries to help combat malaria.
Dallas
ChildCareGroup is requesting funding to provide child care scholarships to needy children. ChildCareGroup serves more than 500 infants, toddlers and preschoolers (ages 0-5) annually from low-income families in the Dallas area. ChildCareGroup’s strategic focus is expansion of quality child care, especially infant care and partially subsidized care for working poor families. Its six child development centers provide services at little or no cost to families living at or below the federal poverty guidelines, while working to eliminate the negative effects that poverty has on early child development and learning. DNF funding would be used to expand the Early Childhood Development and School Readiness Education Programs. Child Care Group is focused on addressing two key issues related to the care and education of young children within our centers: the importance of relationships and the availability of safe, nurturing, school readiness programs for low-income young children. Families living at or below the poverty line often have no other choice but to put their children into adequate or unsafe child care. Simply providing children a place to stay while their parents work is not nearly enough. The goal is to educate, inspire and shape these young minds for future success. Poverty prevents families from investing the necessary time and financial resources in their children’s development. Child Care Group operates seven early care and school readiness education centers serving 595 at risk infants, toddlers and preschool children ages 0-5 from low income families in the Dallas’ most poverty stricken neighborhoods, including East & South Dallas, Oak Cliff, Irving and Garland.
Dallas
Kid Net Foundation is requesting funding for the Girls Treatment Program. It serves adolescent girls in custody of Child Protective Services (CPS) between the ages of 10-17, in need of therapeutic residential care and specialized professional services. These girls have experienced trauma, including but not limited to, neglect, abandonment and physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Participants in the program comes to us from hospitals and treatment centers and/or failed foster care or adoptive placements. They suffer from low esteem, poor coping skills, eating disorders, depression and distrust of adults and/or the system(s) they came from. Through therapy, educational opportunities and a family environment, the program helps residents adjust to living in a less restrictive environment and gives them the ability to eventually live with a foster family or on their own. The Girls Treatment Program gives CPS the only licensed residential placement option in Dallas County for young ladies between the ages of 10-17.
Richardson, TX
Heroes for Children is requesting funding for their Financial and Social Assistance Program. This ongoing project will serve 700 families with children ages 0-22 battling cancer. Heroes for Children provides financial and social assistance to families, within the state of Texas, battling cancer. Funding would go towards financial assistance to families to help with mortgage/rent, utilities, phone, gas, car payments and travel expenses to and from hospitals.
Dallas
North Texas Food Bank is requesting funding for the Food 4 Kids program, which serves 10,000 elementary school children per year for 40 weeks of the school year. Food 4 Kids give children backpacks filled with nutritious, kid-friendly, self-serve snack foods for themselves and younger siblings every Friday afternoon for the duration of the school year (or until the service is no longer needed).
Brattleboro, VT
The Jill E. Harrington Hanzalik Memorial Fund provides the stepping-stones for young people to chase and achieve their dreams. The aim is to provide aid through financial assistance, encouragement and guidance. The Fund is a living legacy to the attributes Jill exhibited daily with the way she lived her life. Her zest for living, drive to achieve her aspirations and enthusiasm were contagious to everyone she met. Jill forever changed the lives of everyone around her.
Atlanta
The Dikembe Mutombo Foundation is dedicated to improving the health, education and quality of life for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Foundation strives to accomplish this goal through an emphasis on primary health care and disease prevention, the promotion of health policy, health research and increased access to health care education for the people of the Congo.
Africa
Habitat for Humanity are a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian ministry founded on the conviction that every man, woman and child should have a decent, safe and affordable place to live. HFH builds with homeowners and volunteers under trained supervision. With support from the DNF, Habitat for Humanity was able to serve 17 families in Senegal last year and the impact will continue to be felt for years. Children now have a safe and healthy home in which to grow, study, play and thrive. Habitat for Humanity proposes to include Malawi and Uganda this year because of the high needs created by AIDS and the orphans left in its wake. In these projects, HFH will not only build fully subsidized homes but also offer training on HIV prevention, basic health and hygiene. Mosquito nets will also be distributed in all three countries to help combat malaria.
Dallas
ChildCareGroup is requesting funding to provide child care scholarships to needy children. ChildCareGroup serves more than 500 infants, toddlers and preschoolers (ages 0-5) annually from low-income families in the Dallas area. ChildCareGroup’s strategic focus is expansion of quality child care, especially infant care and partially subsidized care for working poor families. Its six child development centers provide services at little or no cost to families living at or below the federal poverty guidelines, while working to eliminate the negative effects that poverty has on early child development and learning. DNF funding would be used to expand the Early Childhood Development and School Readiness Education Programs. Child Care Group is focused on addressing two key issues related to the care and education of young children within our centers: the importance of relationships and the availability of safe, nurturing, school readiness programs for low-income young children. Families living at or below the poverty line often have no other choice but to put their children into adequate or unsafe child care. Simply providing children a place to stay while their parents work is not nearly enough. The goal is to educate, inspire and shape these young minds for future success. Poverty prevents families from investing the necessary time and financial resources in their children’s development. Child Care Group operates seven early care and school readiness education centers serving 595 at risk infants, toddlers and preschool children ages 0-5 from low income families in the Dallas’ most poverty stricken neighborhoods, including East & South Dallas, Oak Cliff, Irving and Garland.
Dallas
Friends of Wednesday’s Child is the only organization that provides funds to fulfill the specific needs of North Texas foster children. It strives to provide these children with the hope and healing they need to grow into confident, caring adults that can contribute to society. The goal of the Medical Assistance Program is for North Texas children in foster care to achieve and maintain physical and mental health and well-being. Children in foster care typically have more medical problems and less access to care than children living at home. It’s essential to eliminate these disparities to ensure foster children experience successful childhoods and emerge as healthy adults. Funding would provide medical assistance in the form of specialized equipment, therapy, orthodontics and more.
Dallas
Rainbow Days gives children hope for a promising future by providing the skills and support they need to make healthy choices, stay drug free and believe they have a purpose. Rainbow Days provides life skills education to children, youth and families living in high-risk situations in the Dallas area. Annually over 9,545 children and youth and 200 parents participate in one or more prevention programs offered though Rainbow Days. To reduce barriers and increase access to services, staff and volunteers “circuit ride” to serve children, youth and families at one of 82 different community-based sites including homeless shelters, transitional living centers, domestic violence centers, after-school programs, schools and recreation centers in the Dallas area.
Dallas
LCA is a school of 272 students utilizing the University-Model of education where professional teachers instruct the students two to three days per week on campus and parents continue instructions or monitor their students´work at home on alternate days. The goal is to provide an excellent private school experience where parents and students are committed and involved throughout the year, but offer it at an affordable cost. Funding would go towards building a gymnasium.
Irving, TX
The mission of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of North Texas is to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy. A wish is a child’s answer to the question, “If you could have anything, go anywhere, be anything, or meet anyone, what would you choose?”
Dallas
The mission of the Vogel Alcove is to help alleviate the plight of homelessness in Dallas by improving the lives of young homeless children during their critical development years through provision of freee quality childcare, developmental services and social services.
Dallas
Child Abuse Prevention Center seeks to prevent and reduce the rate of child abuse by teaching young families of newborns positve parenting techniques through in-home visitation and other services.
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