Tauck, the Norwalk-based provider of guided tours and cruises, has provided separate $25,000 grants to the Mark Twain House & Museum and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford.
The grants are part of Tauck’s “World of Giving” corporate philanthropy initiative, and follow the company’s announcement last fall that it would be including both locations on a revised tour of New England it has designed with the award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns.
The Tauck grants will be used to help fund an upcoming special exhibition highlighting the Gilded Age at the Mark Twain House & Museum, and to help underwrite a comprehensive redesign of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center’s website.
Tauck operates nearly 100 land and cruise itineraries to some 70 countries and all seven continents.
Newman’s Own gives $2.4 million in grants for public broadcasting
Newman’s Own Foundation, the Westport organization started by the late actor and philanthropist Paul Newman, has announced grants totaling $2.4 million, over two years, to 13 public broadcasting stations and organizations.
Connecticut Public Broadcasting and WSHU, the public radio station at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, are among the beneficiaries.
The grants represent an ongoing commitment of Newman’s Own Foundation to support open dialogue and promote civic engagement.
“Paul Newman believed that the independent voice played a critical role in making our world a better place,” said Robert Forrester, president of Newman’s Own Foundation.
Funds will be used by some stations to generate increased donor giving through challenge grants. In other cases, funds will be directed to programming or special projects. One example is the National Public Radio’s Military Voices Initiative, where the experiences of military personnel, veterans, and their families will be recorded and broadcast.
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Grant to provide care for northwest corner
Community Mental Health Affiliates in New Britain has received a grant of $81,020 from the Foundation for Community Health to integrate behavioral health care with primary health care for children and families in the northwest corner of Connecticut, making treatment more accessible.
Sharon Hospital’s Regional Healthcare Associates Pediatrics will refer appropriate patients to CMHA’s licensed psychotherapists embedded within their own practice, and CMHA’s therapists will provide counseling services and will collaborate and consult with the pediatricians.
“This is the way that care should be provided, but it is so seldom available to the community,” said CMHA President & CEO Raymond Gorman. “Studies have found that 27 percent of pediatric patients may have behavioral health issues, and we hope that this innovative and integrative approach will help close the treatment gap for children and families. This method of integrating care is more efficient and will produce the best health outcomes.”
Community Mental Health Affiliates, Inc. is a private nonprofit provider of behavioral health and substance abuse treatment with 17 locations.
The Foundation for Community Health is a private, not-for-profit foundation dedicated to improving the health and well-being of the residents of the greater Harlem Valley in New York and the northern Litchfield Hills of Connecticut.
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Travelers Foundation grant supports Hill-Stead poetry
The Travelers Foundation, the charitable arm of The Travelers Companies, Inc., has awarded $10,000 to Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington in support of the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival’s student programs. These programs — which include Connecticut Young Poets Day, Hill-Stead/Hartford Poetry Outreach, and the Fresh Voices Competition — are aimed at high school students statewide.
The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival is one of the premier venues for poetry in the country, featuring the top tier of American poets as well as emerging and student writers from the state and region.
Through the Hill-Stead/Hartford Poetry Outreach, a diverse group of professional poets leads writing workshops for public school students at A. I. Prince Technical School and the Artists Collective Rite of Passage after-school program. Since 1993, thousands of students have submitted their poetry to the Fresh Voices Competition, from which four to six winners are selected to read at the festival each year. These programs encourage poetry writing in the schools at a time when tight budgets have cut arts programs across the state.
While the Hartford Outreach and Fresh Voices Competition have been features of the poetry program at Hill-Stead for many years, Connecticut Young Poets Day was launched in 2012 as part of the festival’s 20th anniversary celebration. The 2013 event — schedule for June 12 — will present young poets from the Connecticut Young Writers Trust, the Connecticut Poetry Circuit, Poetry Out Loud, Celebration of Young Writers, and the Mystic Arts Café Poet Laureates Program. The evening will culminate in a reading by African American poet Tracy K. Smith, a recent Pulitzer Prize winner.
Hill-Stead is noted for its 1901 33,000-square-foot house filled with art and antiques. A centerpiece of the property is the circa 1920 sunken garden designed by Beatrix Farrand, today the site of the renowned Sunken Garden Poetry Festival.
