Grantees

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.

Support recently expanded meal program and increase supports to parents in accessing whole foods and maintaining healthy eating habits at home.

Support from the Vermont Children’s Trust would allow us to purchase skateboarding equipment to benefit Hardwick youth for years to come. After months of community conversations and fundraising, the Hardwick Skatepark Collective—a youth-led initiative at the Civic Standard, driven to create a skatepark in our town—was able to build a mini-ramp this past May. The project generated meaningful partnerships, including with our fire department which allowed the ramp to be housed behind their station. Since then, the dialogue around skateboarding in Hardwick has shifted. Where once neighbors were concerned about youth skating down Main Street for lack of a better-suited location, now there is pride for those who built the first safe, high-quality skateboarding equipment in town. The Collective’s next venture is a series of beginner lessons taught by an experienced member of the group. This project is not only an opportunity to grow the skateboarding community in our rural town, but also a means of harm reduction in an area where many people are affected by economic hardship, homelessness, and addiction. We have witnessed members of the Collective overcome such challenges or avoid them altogether, in part because of access to a community of their peers, positive mentorship, and material resources. At the Civic Standard, we believe play is as vital as other basic necessities. With your support, we can continue expanding how we build a new culture alongside local youth.

A program for parents on how to be well, physically and emotionally.