Grant Recipients 2020

$40,000 Winner

Success Centers was founded by Superior Court Judges in 1983 to provide education and employment opportunities to youth in San Francisco’s juvenile detention facilities. Over the last 40 years, it has expanded its outreach to serve young people from marginalized communities within the county and surrounding areas. Their clients have experienced community violence, childhood losses, undiagnosed disabilities, and in many cases, incarceration. Success Centers works on adjusting their trajectory and developing a positive self-image as well as a sense of hope and purpose for their future. Their innovative approach is to interweave programs in three areas: developing marketable job skills, finishing their education, and finding personal expression and confidence through the arts. This combination makes a difference for 1,300 at-risk teenagers a year, helping them create meaningful and productive lives.

Impact:
A grant from 100 Women will continue and expand their New Directions Employment Program in San Mateo County. At the heart of this program is their motto, “ABC: A job, a Better job, a Career”. Opportunities are provided to prepare young people with technical competencies for the 4^th industrial revolution, foster soft skills, and partner with companies for employment opportunities. Funding will also be used to invest in technology to engage students on a virtual platform, necessitated by Covid-19, and to provide additional program reach in the future.

$40,000 Winner

Many children from foster homes leave without crucial life skills. They have aged out of support programs and often end up living on the streets. Razing the Bar provides comprehensive mentorship and housing support services to current and former foster youth. They offer highly engaged case management and mentoring support covering education, employment, financial literacy, and relationship building. Clients are offered subsidized housing for three years where they receive intensive mentoring, referrals, connections, and the opportunity to learn the crucial life skills and sharing responsibilities needed to become independent.

The investment in mentorship is an integral part of the program to help youth modify behaviors, increase relational networks, and sustain improved outcomes. Unlike other programs, RTB considers that connection permanent – like the lifelong connections made in a fraternity or sorority.

Impact
Razing the Bar currently supports 12 transitional youth. A grant from 100 Women will allow them to expand their program by adding 10 youth, secure additional housing and hire their first paid mentor (outside of the founding team). They will provide up to three hours of customized mentorship per week to each youth. Increasing their services will allow them to help more foster youth to thrive and live a dignified life.

$40,000 Winner

Women’s Achievement Network and Development Alliance (WANDA) empowers each low-income single mother to break the cycle of poverty for herself and her children. They provide financial literacy training, professional and personal development, and a matched savings program for their clients. Their goal is to help their clients achieve self-sufficiency and advance their social-economic status, which is life-changing for the women and their families.

Founded in 2007, WANDA focuses on three areas:

Education: Building skills in financial literacy and career planning,

Equity: Matching savings toward a home purchase, retirement savings, or college education – up to $4000 over 3 years

Empowerment: Critical life skills training.

Participants have an 87% retention rate in the three-year program. Graduates say they joined WANDA for the money and training but later found that their most important gain was the social capital they built through engaging with the WANDA community.

Impact
Each year, WANDA accepts 35 single mothers into a cohort for their three-year program. A grant from 100 Women will be applied toward Cohort #13, to support tuition, technology, and matching investment funds. Participants have an impressive track record of personal results – higher-paying jobs, higher credit scores, and asset wealth building – all steps to newfound financial independence.

$10,000 Winner

People are hungry in our community. Hope’s Corner, a joint ministry of Los Altos United Methodist Church and Trinity United Methodist Church serves low-income and vulnerable individuals nutritious, hot sit-down breakfasts, and to-go snack lunches. Clients are welcomed into a setting that supports individual dignity and builds community. The food services have expanded from serving a few dozen people a week in 2011 to over 700 meals per week. In 2015, laundry and showers facilities were added for clients to use on Saturdays. They have also developed partnerships with Silicon Valley Bike Exchange, flu clinics and county health vans, almost 100% volunteer operated by scout troops, service organizations, faith groups, company volunteer programs, and family and friends.

Impact:
A grant from 100 Women will allow Hope’s Corner to purchase additional food and increase the number of meals provided each week. Adhering to Covid-19 protocol has necessitated a change in their delivery system to drive or walkthrough instead of offering a community meal experience. This change has allowed them to serve a larger client base. The grant will fund an expansion of additional services that have grown out of serving this community such as providing battery packs for cell phones, clothing, toiletries, and bus passes.

$10,000 Winner

There are no handouts at Sunday Friends. Started 24 years ago, Sunday Friends has expanded its unique model, serving over 1,000 low-income Hispanic families in San Jose. At Sunday Friends, parents and children are helped to reframe their views of themselves and of their relationships with their communities to break their cycle of helplessness and poverty. Self-respect and pride in one’s accomplishments are earned through work and helping others – not by accepting handouts. Families participate in learning activities to earn tickets. The tickets help teach financial literacy and are redeemable for much-needed items such as school supplies and educational games and toys. Children build the developmental assets required for success, adults learn life skills, and whole families transition together towards self-sufficiency, as they work to earn basic necessities.

Impact:
Funding from 100 Women will be used in sustaining an ongoing program, the Healthy Living Project. Due to Covid-19, this program has moved online, reaching an even larger number of clients. The program stresses the importance of healthy eating, physical activity, and how to best access nutritious food. Clients attend cooking classes taught by professional chefs where they learn how to prepare healthy recipes. Clients redeem the tickets they earn on food, toiletries, paper goods, school supplies, and diapers.

$10,000 Winner

“The First Five Years Matter”. Studies show that 90% of brain development happens by age 3, while universal education does not start until age 5. In San Mateo County, low-income children are entering kindergarten up to 18 months behind their peers and are unable to catch up. Peninsula Family Connections’ goal is to create a high-quality family learning community so underserved children and parents together become the drivers of their success. They do this by offering free services such as parent participation preschool, K-5 navigation support, parent education, and in-depth personalized family support.

For families struggling with job loss, housing, and food insecurity, and overcrowded living spaces, the impact of COVID-19 is multiplied. If unmet, families are forced to prioritize their basic needs over participating in their children’s education. This puts their children at the highest risk for learning loss and elementary school readiness delays.

Impact
A grant from 100 Women will contribute to Family Connection’s ongoing parent participation childhood education programs and support their move online to maintain the trajectory of learning so that their children reach developmental and academic milestones. Serving over 350 individuals, it will also fund the expansion of the services they provide in connecting families with food banks, physical and mental health services, and housing assistance.