The Delaware Community Foundation (DCF) has awarded $360,000 in Focus Grants to programs enriching the lives of Delaware youth, supporting Latino communities, and advancing nonprofit leaders of color.

Focus Grants support organizations and initiatives working to build opportunity so all Delaware residents can overcome barriers to success, benefit equitably and thrive. Grants were awarded in three priority areas and include new Leadership in Community grants to support leaders of color in Delaware and the organizations and communities they serve.

Leadership in Community Grants, supported by a $150,000 gift from Wilmington-based Barclays US Consumer Bank, include new multi-year program development grants intended to help support resilient, sustainable Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) led organizations, fuel community-driven change, and ensure current and next-generation leaders’ long-term success. Program development grants may be renewed for 2022 and 2023, and additional resources will be available to grantees based on their specific needs.

This year’s Focus Grants recipients are:

Leadership in Community Grants

Afro-American Historical Society – $25,000*
To establish the “Eastside Pride – We Matter!” project to build leadership capacity at several community-based initiatives focused on Black history, heritage and economic development in Wilmington’s historic Eastside neighborhood.

Moms House of Dover – $25,000
To provide life-skills training, academic support and quality childcare for low-income single parents as they attend high school or college full time, helping them overcome systemic barriers to academic success and financial independence, including those related to race and ethnicity.

Nuestras Raices Delaware – $25,000*
To support the “Emerging Leaders Development” program, a BIPOC-led initiative that provides mentorship and workshops to help future or growing leaders continually evolve as effective leaders who can grow their careers, and allowing companies to have a well-rounded group of leaders in their talent pipeline.

Network Delaware – $25,000*
To develop inclusive leadership through the “Change Agent Journey,” an individually tailored civic leadership program for primarily BIPOC participants who want to improve their ability to change their communities.

Supporting Kidds – $20,000
To provide certification in grief counseling and nonprofit leadership to Supporting Kidds’ leadership and offer the organization’s “Healing Pathways” grief support program for children and their caregivers remotely, in person and in schools.

*Multi-year program development grants

Increasing Youth Success

Bellevue Farms – $15,000
To increase Bellevue Farms’ educational capacity by implementing a 9-month garden- and nutrition-based afterschool/out-of-school program for youth grades 6-12 in preparation for continued career training in agriculture, horticulture and nutrition.

Community Education Building – $10,000
To implement the WAVE Learning System, including WAVE’s “Reconnected Teen” program to reduce educational inequity by providing students with personalized learning and mental health support.

Urban Bike Project – $15,000
To support the “Urban Bike Explorers” program, which will use bicycling and bicycle mechanics as tools to engage youth in social-emotional learning and help them build positive connections with their communities.

Leading Youth Through Empowerment – $15,000
To support LYTE’s growing “Changing Academic Trajectory” summer, afterschool and high school transition programs for low-income students in partnership with schools throughout Delaware.

The Teen Warehouse – $10,000
To support the “Teens in Motion” program, providing personal development, soft skills and technical training designed to move teens from Warehouse Team Member to employment. Upon completion of the program, teens will be placed into a work-based learning experience

Green Beret – $15,000
To support the “Equipping Youth for Success” project to provide economically disadvantaged youth with mentorship, leadership training and career preparation through travel to college tours, historical sites, and outdoor activities like fishing, hiking and camping.

Harry K Foundation – $15,000
To support the foundation’s “Halt Hunger” program for underprivileged children, which distributes backpacks of food to supplement students’ households and establishes food pantries in Delaware schools and other facilities.

REACH Riverside – $10,000
To support the “Early Learners Music” program, a collaboration between REACH Riverside’s Kingswood Community Center and the Wilmington Children’s Chorus that seeks to create a play-based, culturally responsive and developmentally appropriate music program for children in Wilmington’s impoverished Riverside neighborhood.

CAMP Rehoboth – $10,000
To support CAMP Rehoboth’s “Youth Up!” program, which promotes and strengthens school GSA clubs and offers a wide array of enrichment activities for struggling and marginalized LGBTQIA youth in middle and high schools.

Thriving Latino Communities

TeenSHARP – $25,000
To implement the “Padres Embajadores Para La Educación Universitaria (Parent Ambassadors for College Education)” Spanish-language training program, which will develop a cadre of 55 parents to become ambassadors for higher education in Delaware’s Spanish-speaking communities.

Literacy Delaware – $15,000
To expand the “Moving Beyond” literacy tutoring program by purchasing additional curriculum, training supplies, assessment materials and technology, and to continue to create collaborative partnerships that build a strong continuum of services in Sussex County’s Latino communities.

United Way of Delaware – $25,000
To implement United Way Delaware’s “$tand By Me: NexGen” program of effective and culturally relevant methods to increase awareness of financial aid and post-secondary admissions processes, assist Latino students with financial aid acquisition, and ensure post-secondary enrollment.

Delaware Shakespeare – $15,000
To support DelShakes’ 2021 Community Tour, which will bring free performances of a new musical adaptation of “Twelfth Night” viewed through the lens of the Latina immigrant experience to locations such as prisons, community centers, and medical facilities.

Habitat for Humanity Sussex County – $25,000
To expand the accessibility and increase participation in Habitat for Humanity’s “Family Empowerment” program in Sussex County’s Latino Communities. The program builds strength, stability and self-reliance through financial literacy and affordable homeownership,

La Esperanza – $20,000
To support La Esperanza’s Comprehensive Support Services core programs: “Resource Navigation and Family Coaching,” “Immigration Services,” “Victim’s Services” and “Youth Leadership and Prevention” programming.

Photo courtesy of Nuestras Raices Delaware