DENVER, Aug. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- GroundFloor
Media (GFM) and its sister agency, CenterTable, announced the Get
Grounded Foundation has awarded its latest round of community
grants to six outstanding local programs supporting youth services.
More than $21,000 was granted to
Children's Farms of America, Denver Children's Advocacy Center, The
Family Tree, Havern School, Illuminate Colorado, and Platte Forum. The programs were
selected for their efforts to get a new or innovative program off
the "ground floor" in the areas of child abuse and
neglect, youth behavioral health and/or childhood hunger
relief. To date, the Foundation has granted more than $100,000 in community grants.
A volunteer committee made up of individuals from the sister
agencies reviewed the spring 2018 round of grant applications. The
deadline for applications for the fall 2018 grant cycle is
Friday, October 12, 2018.
The Spring 2018 Get Grounded Foundation Grant
Recipients
Children's Farms of America is the facilitator of the
FreshLo Farms for Kids project in the Montbello neighborhood in
Denver. The organization' mission
is to teach city kids about farming for their community by helping
neighborhoods establish small urban farms where children learn
about and then grow food for themselves and for their community.
This grant will support a farm-school garden specialist to consult
on urban agriculture, increasing yield in small spaces, working
with children and adults on topics such as growing environments,
pest management, nutrition and food preparation.
The Denver Children's Advocacy Center's
(DCAC) mission is to prevent abuse, strengthen families and
restore childhood. Its programs fall along a continuum of care that
includes prevention, early intervention, crisis response, forensic
interviews, mental health treatment and family support
services. Funds from the foundation will be used to help
establish DCAC's Therapeutic Garden Program by supporting a garden
specialist and purchasing children's gardening tools and gloves.
The organization was awarded a Get Grounded grant in Spring 2017
for their Trauma-informed Yoga and Mindfulness Program.
"We are so thrilled to have the Get Grounded Foundation's
support in starting our Children's Garden. We believe this project
will empower our clients to take initiative and teach them that
they can grow something beautiful," Inci
Caballero Ellis, Community Connector at the Denver
Children's Advocacy Center.
Family Tree was incorporated in 1976, and has been
providing services to Colorado
families in crisis for over 40 years. Family Tree was founded as a
cooperative effort with local government, civic, and private
agencies to coordinate existing human service resources, and to
identify and develop innovative responses for youth and families in
Jefferson County, Colorado, who
were struggling to overcome child abuse and neglect and domestic
violence. Due to high-quality services provided, along with
expanding community needs, they broadened their service array to
include individuals and families experiencing homelessness, as well
as our service footprint to include the entire seven-county
Denver metro area. Since 2005,
they have been operating utilizing our three programmatic pillars
of Child and Youth Services, Domestic Violence Services, and
Housing and Family Stabilization Services. Funds from the
Foundation will allow Family Tree to offer Dialectical Behavior
Therapy (DBT) groups to families with youth between the ages of
10-15 years old. This new service model will allow the organization
to increase its impact on high-risk youth in Metro Denver.
Havern School was founded in 1966 by a visionary group of
educators, the Sisters of Loretto. The Sisters recognized a need
for a school to educate "perceptually handicapped" students, now
referred to as students with learning disabilities, in the
Denver area. Havern provides a
unique learning environment for students K-8th grade with diagnosed
learning disabilities. With families in nine Colorado counties and 47 zip codes, the school
serves students with significant learning disabilities including
dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, language-based disabilities,
auditory and visual processing issues, sensory processing disorder,
ADHD and working memory disorders. The school intends to use the
Foundation grant to support its new visual arts classroom.
Illuminate Colorado is a
statewide network of four established organizations – Colorado
Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, Prevent Child Abuse
Colorado, Colorado Chapter of the National Organization on Fetal
Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and Sexual Abuse Forever Ending – that
build brighter childhoods through education, advocacy, and family
support. Funds from the Foundation will be used to establish a
Circle of Parents in Recovery Group in Denver, a specialized parent support group
program for parents struggling to sustain substance use disorder
recovery. Circle of Parents in Recovery focuses specifically on
strengthening the family unit during this crucial, high-risk
period.
"As the impact on children of caregiver substance use increases
across the Denver Metro area and
the state of Colorado, it is
critical to support families as they seek to heal and recover
together. The support from the Get Grounded Foundation will be
critical in providing professional facilitation through our Circle
of Parents in Recovery program for families impacted by
substance use in the Denver Metro
Area. In addition, we're thrilled at the opportunity to get our
parent advisory council off the ground to ensure parents are
effectively and meaningfully engaged in building a brighter future
for their family," Jade Woodard,
executive director, Illuminate Colorado.
Founded in 2002, PlatteForum provides opportunities for
learning through the arts for Denver's most vulnerable youth and expands
public access to programming high in artistic excellence.
PlatteForum matches under-resourced youth with professional artists
in intensive and long-term projects where they explore relevant
social issues in a safe and inclusive environment, and develop
personal, academic and life skills that stay with them forever. The
10-year graduation rate of 99.97% is a shining example of their
commitment to youth and arts education. Foundation funds will help
support a new collaboration between PlatteForum's ArtLab and
Apprentice of Peace Youth Organization. PlatteForum was also a Fall
2015 and 2016 grant recipient.
About The Get Grounded Foundation
The Get Grounded
Foundation, established in 2015, is based on two pillars of thought
already firmly established at GFM and CenterTable. The first is
that nonprofits, similar to many startup organizations, are
entrepreneurial in their approach, yet often can't find seed
funding to get a new or innovative program off the "ground floor."
Second, it elevates the agencies' long giving history of focusing
on causes that our team members are proud to support, including
child abuse and neglect prevention, youth behavioral health and
childhood hunger relief. As such, The Foundation provides one-year
grants, which to date totals more than $100,000. These grants are funded by GFM and
CenterTable's profits, for new innovative or entrepreneurial
programs or projects within an existing, qualified nonprofit that
directly supports the healthy development of at-risk youth between
the ages of three and 13 in the Denver Metro area.
About GroundFloor Media & CenterTable
Founded in
2001, GroundFloor Media (GFM) is an award-winning communications
firm, focused on public relations and crisis & issues
management. Its sister agency, CenterTable, helps clients create
direct and measurable connections with their target audiences
through social media, digital advertising, website design and
development, SEO, video production, creative campaigns and content
development.
Headquartered in Denver, the
agencies have more than 30 team members throughout the U.S., with
global reach across 50 countries through membership in PROI, the
industry's largest partnership of independent market-leading
agencies.
GFM has been recognized four times by OUTSIDE magazine as
one of the top five Best Places to Work in America. In addition,
GFM was named a Certified B Corporation® in 2016 by the global
nonprofit B Lab®. The certification recognizes companies meeting
the highest global standards for corporate transparency,
accountability and social and environmental performance.
For more information about GFM and CenterTable, visit
groundfloormedia.com or meetatct.com and get to know the agencies
via their blog, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Media Contact:
Elise
Bishop
GroundFloor Media
303.865.8158
ebishop@groundfloormedia.com
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SOURCE The Get Grounded Foundation