HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Huntsville City Learning Center is one the the six grant award recipients from The Community Foundation. 6-8 grade classroom coordinator April Boddie said during the school year the after school learning center brings children in from grades K-9. "Our main goal is to supplement kids education and to make them lifelong learners, not only in the classroom but in the community. We focus more on emotions. so we do emotional intelligence. We do logic, and we offer our kids an introduction to 3D printing and technological things. That's going to give them an advantage in this tech field that we are come and find ourselves coming to."
Village of Promise CEO Dana Gillis said they will be utilizing this grant from the community foundation to help fund their family connections program. "Family connections is a great program that we utilize to basically provide part of our multi generally generational approach to dealing with generational poverty. this is a program that's focused on adults and families, and it's an opportunity to bring both of them together in a 12-week program to kind of give them the tools that they need to build a better family foundation."
During the 2022-2023 program year, the program served 40 adults with 60 children for a total of 100 individuals served.
- Family Connections is a two-generation literacy program that equips families with the knowledge and skills needed to help advance them out of poverty. Education, support, and services are offered to parents and children in four areas: education, social & emotional growth, physical health & wellness, and professional development.
- The Family Connections program is a 12-week program offered twice per year. Each session is a total of two hours of instruction plus parents and children eat dinner together.
- The broad goal of Family Connections is to advance families out of generational poverty toward self sufficiency and abundance. Specific objectives are defined in advance for all program sessions. Through this program, VoP provides access to fundamental life, parenting, financial literacy, and relational skills that empower families to make decisions beneficial to them.
- The program is designed to give families a concentrated time period to grow and learn together and time for them to focus on themselves and become proficient in exercising skills learned through this program. These skills are necessary to navigate the complexities of everyday life and help these individuals break the cycle of poverty for their families.
- Village of Promise (VoP) is a Family Advancement Center founded to address the needs of children and families in distressed, high-poverty neighborhoods. VoP’s mission is to empower families to advance out of poverty using a multi-generational approach, promising support through a continuum of services, and inspiring them to achieve their goals and contribute to their community.
- VoP provides educational programs, sustainable tools and opportunities for empowerment. Each VoP family develops an “Individualized Family Advancement Plan” that addresses four key areas of their lives: Education, Social and Emotional Growth, Physical Health & Wellness, and Professional Development.
The Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville President and CEO Melissa Thompson explained that since they launched the racial equity fund they've had the opportunity of awarding over $340,000 in grants in various areas. "In areas like economic opportunity, education, health and wellness and neighborhoods and communities." The generosity of the community also plays a major role in making this all possible. "We've launched the racial equity fund to be able to mobilize the generosity of really over 80 different donors who've come in to support this effort to be a force for good in this area."