Grantees

Maple Leaf Childrens Center is located in orange county where childcare availability is low. We plan to increase our outdoor enrichment space for all the children we serve and bring art from the inside! MLCC loves using full-body multiuse learning. Art is such a large important of learning. We plan to create an outdoor art learning space.

Purchase one sunsetter awning to improve the outdoorgross motor sensory area for rainy and hot days.

The Come Alive Outside Outdoor Passport program is a free, interactive booklet that encourages children and families to engage in hyper-local outdoor activities where they live, work, and play. Each Passport includes 25+ activities across four categories: Make Your Own Adventure, Investigate Local Parks, Discover Local Foods, and Explore Your Community. By completing activities, participants build stronger connections to nature, improve well-being, and engage with their communities. Successfully implemented in Rutland County for nine years, it will be piloted in Barre in summer 2025, prioritizing families facing the highest health inequities

The Barra School is expanding their year-long overnight programming to include afterschool and weekend-based OUTReach and OUTings programming to support at-risk, trauma-impacted, neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+, and otherwise marginalized youth in Orange County and surrounding areas.

Outright’s founders imagined a Vermont where LGBTQ+ youth would always know they weren’t alone. They launched the first social and support program in November of 1989 – a weekly Friday Night Group (FNG) in Burlington. It didn’t take long to determine that preparing youth to navigate isolation and harm wouldn’t be enough. We needed to strengthen – and when necessary, transform – the external climate affecting young people every day. This includes their own families. Outright is strengthening our family programs, and launching new co-occurring programs in northern VT. These programs will build resilience and protective factors for both families and youth, creating more safe, supportive, and stable homes for vulnerable Vermonters.

Outright Vermont (ORVT) will use this funding for the formal launch of a QTBIPOC youth group. QTBIPOC stands for Queer and Transgender Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. This group will be an intentional space, driven by youth and supported by QTBIPOC adult volunteers. The goal is to provide the opportunity to connect, build community, tackle challenges, harness joy, and simply be.

Pages, a Book Club for Parents and Caregivers is a group to gather caregivers to discuss the highs and lows of raising tweens. The discussion will be guided by a book of the group's choosing and will center the expertise of participants. This is an opportunity for parents and caregivers to find community, share tips, and develop a support network. Friday Nights in the Teen Center for High School Students will open our Teen Center space to 9-12th graders. We will offer games, dinner, crafts, and other activities of the kids choosing. Providing this third space for youth at no-cost to families will help engage high schoolers.

Our school would like to have an open door pantry. Students can grab non-perishable food items to help with their families insecurities. This program is aimed at keeping the minds of students and families on education and on helping to maintain a positive experience from school to home. While feeding and offering food to our community/students will help improve our school climate. In our high school we currently have 34 homeless students. We have 1939 students Enrolled in the high school and out of those students we have over 1100 Economically Disadvantaged. Estimate 56%