Grantees

The CVRAN Youth Enrichment Fund opens doors for refugee and immigrant children in Central Vermont by making high‑quality sports, arts, STEM, outdoor, and leadership programs truly accessible. Many families face financial, language, and transportation barriers that keep their children on the sidelines. This Fund removes those barriers with scholarships, transportation support, multilingual guidance, and essential materials—ensuring every young person can participate, grow, and thrive. By connecting youth to enriching activities and strong peer networks, the Fund builds confidence, belonging, and the foundation for long‑term well‑being.

Transtion camp for incoming nnth graders to the Champlain Valley Union High School. Provide opportunities for students to connect with each other, the building and other high school resources.

The goal of this program is to build protective factors in families and support positive parenting techniques that reinforce healthy behaviors and a commitment to positive social values.

Dad Guild uses a multifaceted approach to engage father figures in their caregiving roles. Since 2019, the organization has developed and implemented over 750 hours of programming to a growing network of over 1000 fathers across the state of Vermont. We recently received a grant from the VT Dept. of Health that will support the expansion of our in-person parental education workshop series and also the production of a parental education podcast series. We will expand Dad Guild's onling programming by producing additional online content, purchaing more equipment, and increasing staff time to ensure the highest number of Vermont fathers can access our programming content digitally.

Dad Guild uses a multifaceted approach to engage father figures in their caregiving roles. Since 2019, the organization has developed and implemented over 600 hours of programming to a growing network of nearly 800 fathers across the state of Vermont. The Dads & Kids program is the organization’s most popular, attracting over 200 unique participants (including 90 dads) in the 2021-22 fiscal year. In this program, dads and their children meet up at playgrounds, sporting events, restaurants, nature trails, and libraries to connect with one another. Fathers participating in the playgroups strengthen and grow their own peer support network, while children who participate benefit from strengthening their relationships with their own fathers.

Dad Guild is Northern New England’s largest fatherhood community, with a growing network of approximately 2,500 dads and masculine-identifying caregivers across Vermont. Facilitating over 300+ events every year, Dad Guild’s activities fall into four program categories: Fatherhood Peer Support Network, Dads & Kids, Caregiver Education, and Whole Family Events. The Dads & Kids program offers a wide range of activities for fathers to engage in with their children including library playgroups, playground playgroups, arts & crafts, board games, infant massage, nature walks, sporting events and more. After finding much success in Chittenden County, Dad Guild is looking to expand the Dads & Kids program to 8 additional regions across Vermont.

Sunrise is Bennington County’s Parent Child Center, and our mission is “Strengthening Families”. Sunrise works in partnership with individuals, families, and community members to provide a variety of supports and services. These services promote the growth and development of individuals and families through encouragement of strengths, expansion of opportunities, and support in times of stress. With this opportunity, we will start a monthly program, DADS (Dads Always Discovering Success). We will invite father figures and their children to join in enriching activities, in partnership with the Vermont Arts Exchange. Together with their children, they will cook, create art, learn, grow, be present, and build social capitol with other fathers.

We seek to build upon our experience and knowledge received via the current Dads Create group and put it into practice and expand upon it. We know that the more fathers who know how to play with their children in age appropriate ways and focus on the joy of being a parent, the better for our entire community. These sessions will increase fathers’ awareness of controlling, abusive, and neglectful attitudes and behaviors and understand how different fathering strategies and choices affect children. Dads Create's attendance continues to grow and we do not want to lose our momentum. We will continue to provide food for these groups because we know that sharing a meal helps maintain relationships and allows for a time for conversation among families and hope to continue our relationship with the VT Arts Exchange.