We hope that the following profiles of past grant recipients will provide a sense of the types of programs we have supported in recent years.
Group 1: a group working with BIPOC+ girls and young women in a major Midwestern city. This group’s mission is to equip BIPOC+ girls and young women with life and leadership skills that foster individual growth and inspire them to use their talents for positive change in their communities and throughout the world. A grant from Charter Oak Foundation helped to fund this group’s program specifically aimed at reducing by 50% the number of teenage pregnancies among young women 14 to 19 years of age in two inner-city communities. The supported program advocates for comprehensive sex education in schools, challenging the culture of low expectations for girls, promoting facilitated conversations between adults and youth about sex, and encouraging participation in sports, hobbies, and youth organizations with the aim of avoiding pregnancy until at least age 24.
Group 2: a group providing animal-assisted therapy and related programming to youth in Washington State. The majority of this group’s clients are hand-picked by school staff, social-service organizations, and families as needing supportive behavioral and emotional interventions. Approximately 90% of these youth come from low-income households and need significant support to prevent school drop outs, incarcerations, gang involvement, drug use, and/or clinical depression. Founded 12 years prior to submitting its grant request to Charter Oak Foundation, this group has been extremely successful at serving those suffering from myriad issues including hopelessness, low self-esteem, anger and lack of impulse control, chemical dependency in themselves and/or family members, and a history of being physically or sexually abuse. A grant from Charter Oak Foundation enabled this group to increase the funding for its mental health counselor, doubling the number of youth the counselor served that year.
Group 3: a group providing mental health services to LGBTQ+ youth in the Upper Midwest. This group was founded a few years before submitting its grant request to Charter Oak Foundation. It provides support services for the growing population of LGBTQ+ youth (most of whom, in this case, are also BIPOC+ youth) and their families. Services provided by this group target five main areas of need among its clientele: immediate safety and stability, life direction support, health advocacy, document preparation, and family support, while providing accessible and consistent relationships and a critical sense of connection for the youth. A grant from Charter Oak Foundation helped this group add a second full-time therapist to its team.
Group 4: a small, residential program for low-income minority males from inner-city junior high schools in Connecticut. This competitive program recruits promising young men and provides them with a family-like structure (meals, housing, structured study times and tutoring, recreational activities, college selection and admissions guidance, and so on) in a group home in a high-achieving school district, where the students benefit from the dedication and expertise of local residents and the resources of the local high school. The students are provided with one-on-one tutoring and help developing the study habits they need to succeed, while receiving guidance in developing leadership and self-determination in an independent residential group-living environment under adult supervision. One-hundred percent of participants graduate from high school and go on to college (including many top-tier schools such as Yale, Duke, UConn, London School of Economics, and others), and more than ninety-five percent complete their undergraduate degrees. A grant from Charter Oak Foundation helped to fund this group’s skill-building summer program for its incoming students.