Grantees

A program for early childhood education.

The purpose of this grant is to provide program support and to sustain outreach efforts aimed at recruiting, training and supporting volunteers in the Bradford, VT area and towns in Windsor County. Trained volunteers help to strengthen families of newborns during those first 3 months following birth by "pitching in" in any way the mother wants, relieving the isolation and exhaustion that new mothers often feel.

Little Lambs serves children ages 6 weeks through 12 years old year-round. After evaluating our needs with parents and staff, it was determined that the children would greatly benefit from having an outdoor classroom within a nature-based learning environment. We have an amazing location however the grounds require immense re-grading before we can add paved pathways, a learning garden, classroom pavilion, dramatic play stage, sandbox, swings, and fencing. It is our desire to create a "playborhood" where families and communities members can come together to play and learn together in a safe, stimulating and shared space.

Green Mountain Mobile Therapy is purchasing an electric generator battery, which will increase the mobile healthcare units electric watt capacity. This is a sustainable renewable energy source that is efficient and reduces overall costs for the organization. Green Mountain Mobile Therapy is a nonprofit organization that provides therapy and social/emotional services to Vermont’s youth and families in locations that do not have appropriate therapeutic spaces and accessible services. Green Mountain Mobile Therapy engages with schools and community organizations to provide direct mental health services and social/emotional resources.

Would like to purchase equipment for children to use indoors to help provide opportunities for them to improve their overall health through daily physical fitness since they do not get PE time at the elementary school.

DREAM is working to reach some of the most underserved children in Vermont, those living in the Northeast Kingdom (NEK). We are currently engaged in a feasibility study, exploring a variation to our model that will train high school students to mentor younger youth living in low-income housing. Our model will maintain the high-quality DREAM mentor experience while also expanding our mentor pool to reach children in the NEK, an area that has proven difficult to reach, with little easy access to college student mentors. We are working to carry our study forward into implementation, including developing a service-learning curriculum for high school students and piloting the new model at a high school in the NEK.

DREAM's mission is to help close the opportunity gap for at-promise youth. Historically, they achieve this mission through year-round programming including (1) Weekly after school “Village Mentoring” (2) Summer Enrichment (3) Afterschool Enrichment, and (4) Local and regional adventures taking youth as far as DREAM’s residential Camp in northern Vermont, Camp DREAM. All of DREAM’s programming is free for enrolled families. This grant supports DREAM’s newest program, Guided Mentoring, an in- school peer-to-peer mentoring program in which high school students are trained in mentoring best practice, matched with elementary youth, and guided by DREAM staff through an extensive mentor-in-training curriculum.