The Connecticut Community Foundation has awarded grants totaling $96,000 to ten nonprofit organizations serving residents of 21 municipalities in the Waterbury region and the Litchfield Hills. With these grants, the Waterbury foundation aims to build pathways from poverty to prosperity and to support diverse and robust neighborhood, city and regional economies.
Career Resources was among three organizations awarded grants for delivery of job training. With their $10,000 grant (their second from the Foundation), they will continue to provide job readiness training to unemployed adults in Waterbury with substantial barriers to employment, such as lack of formal education or history of incarceration. Career Resources’ intensive three-week training, based on the national STRIVE model, teaches professional workplace norms and leadership and public presentation skills to prepare people for gainful employment.
Said Scott Wilderman, CEO of Career Resources: “For the minimum amount of investment, the STRIVE program delivers maximum return in terms of creating job opportunities and also improving the family unit. We are creating wage earners, tax paying citizens and productive employees.”
Other Waterbury awards by the foundation:
• Neighborhood Housing Services of Waterbury received a $10,000 grant to explore the feasibility of developing a local food-truck park, or similar business. This social enterprise could serve as a catalyst of community and economic development, the foundation said.
• Madre Latina, based in Waterbury, received $5,000 to support social services, job training and education that position Latinas for success in the workforce.
• New Milford-based Community Culinary School of Northwestern Connecticut received a $10,000 grant to support job skills training for unemployed and underemployed adults leading to career paths in the food service industry.
Said Julie Loughran, president and CEO of Connecticut Community Foundation: “A skilled workforce and thriving families fuel the economic engine of greater Waterbury and the Litchfield Hills. We applaud the donors and grantees whose investments in the economic vitality of the region make communities stronger for us all.”
A committee of area residents comprehensively reviewed the submitted grant applications and made recommendations to the foundation’s board of trustees, which in December approved the grant awards for 2019.
The grants are made possible through the generosity of donors who have created charitable funds at the foundation since its founding in 1923.
