Upcoming Event
Begins Tuesday, March 06, 2012 at 12:00 PM
Human Webs
The notion of zero-sum games is a popular way of constructing our world: if business wins, the environment loses; if girls…
Most Recent
Girls Award $5000 in Social Change Grants
The Midcoast Council of the Maine Women’s Fund awarded $2,000 in Splash micro grants
Grant Partners
2010-2011 Grant Partners
Education
The Community Schools ($10,000) Passages, a unique high school degree program of The Community School, provides a crucial role in educating Maine’s young mothers at a significant time in their lives (when becoming a parent requires them to seriously address the economic security of their families). The Community School’s Passages Program is a home-based high school degree program for young parents operating out of two sites: Camden, serving the Midcoast region of Knox, Waldo, parts of Lincoln Counties, and its satellite program at the Cobscook Community Learning Center in Washington County. Approximately 35 young parents are enrolled annually (95% mothers and 5% fathers), and an average graduating class is 6 to 9 per year. Since 1996, over 125 mothers and a few fathers have graduated. In September 2011, The Community School’s Passages program plans to open another site in Gray/New Gloucester.
Coastal Studies School for Girls ($5,000) The number of science-based jobs is raising. A science career pays well. And in today’s technological world a basic level of scientific literacy is helpful and financially beneficial. Yet, women only hold 25% of science and engineering jobs in the United States. Coastal Studies School for Girls provides sophomore high school girls with a sixteen-week semester focusing on science, leadership, and core academics. Attending CSG will provide Maine girls with a chance to enjoy an experience that will build their science and technology skills and foster interest in those careers that pay well, thereby improving the likelihood of their economic security as adults. Given Maine’s homogeneous population, CSG also provides a diverse learning community with participants coming from all over the country. More than half of the applicants are from Maine, yet only 4 out of 13 were able to participate in the inaugural class because of a lack of scholarship funds. With this grant, CSG will be able to offer more scholarships to Maine applicants with financial need.
Hardy Girls Healthy Women ($7,000) Hardy Girls Healthy Women advances the economic security of women and girls in Maine by empowering them with knowledge, critical thinking skills, and a platform to drive social change. Their research-based programs and services are focused on redefining what it means to be female in our society, connecting girls with bold, successful women in the community, building the leadership capacity of girls, and filling the pipeline of future leaders with strong, progressive voices. Their vision is that all girls and women experience equality, independence, and safety in their everyday lives. Visit our Inspirational Stories page to learn more about how Hardy Girls Healthy Women is making change happen.
Entrepreneurship, Better Jobs and Wages
A Company of Girls ($3,000) A Company of Girls (ACOG) is an award-winning, nationally recognized after school theater & arts prevention program for low income, high-risk and special needs girls ages 7-18 that has been serving the Greater Portland community for the past fifteen years. The mission of our organization is to “strengthen and empower girls and their families and to foster community through the arts.” To further our goal of developing girls into successful women, ACOG is adopting a new initiative that is slated for our 2011-12 program year. This new initiative is a mentoring and job shadowing collaborative with local businesses. We will work closely with our program participants, asking “what they want to be when they grow up“ and then partner with women in the community who either currently work in that field or who have an interest in mentoring a girl to build her skills and attain her goals in a broader sense. Through these close connections, girls create bonds with professional women who show them how the professional world works and who act as a role model for future endeavors.
United Way of Greater Portland ($7,000) United Way of Greater Portland and the Sam L. Cohen Foundation have created a dedicated pool of funding that will provide one-time grants to help licensed child care providers move into Maine’s voluntary, four-step early care and education quality rating system (Quality for ME) and advance to Step 2. Maine’s licensed child care industry employs nearly 9,000 Maine residents (predominantly women). There are 290 family child care programs in Cumberland County. These programs serve up to 12 children in a home setting and are the most frequently used form of child care in Maine. Family child care providers are dedicated, entrepreneurial and often unaware of the resources that can help them improve the quality of their programming or support their development.
Maine Centers for Women, Work, and Community ($7,000) This Next Steps project directly addresses the Strategic Funding Area of Entrepreneurship and Better Jobs & Wages and touches on the area of Asset Building and Financial Literacy. Women, Work, and Community (WWC) has provided entrepreneurship training and technical assistance to over 7,000 individuals over the past 25 years. Self-employment and business development offer women the opportunity to create their own job, generate income and build wealth for themselves and their families. The project is a continuation and an expansion of work being done in Aroostook and Penobscot Counties. The mini-grant program began as an experiment several years ago has proven to be an important catalyst for business growth, networking and community building among small business entrepreneurs. We look forward to having this small, but powerful tool at our disposal for another year. Visit our Inspirational Stories page to learn more about how the Women, Work and Community is making change happen.
Financial Literacy & Asset Building
Girl Scouts of Maine ($4,000) One of the most fundamental ways to ensure girls and women’s advancement and leadership is to empower them with the tools of financial literacy. Girl Scouts of Maine provides the building blocks that become the foundation upon which girls can grow into successful women. By developing money management skills early in life, girls learn how to increase their income, become responsible consumers, create a budget, build and manage credit and save and invest for future possibilities or pitfalls. Over the years, Girl Scouts USA has provided councils such as Girl Scouts of Maine with curricula like CentsAbility and kits such as the Penny Project both developed to help girls exercise their financial literacy muscles by helping them learn, and put into action, key concepts and skills related to personal money management. Girl Scouts learn the importance of managing money through such earned grade-level awards as the Business-Wise Badge, the Dollars and Sense Interest Project Award, and, of course, the cookie program.
St. Mary’s Health System Nutrition Center ($4,000) Located in the midst of Lewiston’s most diverse and economically challenged neighborhoods, the Nutrition Center (NC) works to improve community health through education, organizing and advocacy. The Nutrition Center’s core activities include hands on cooking and nutrition education for all ages; community gardens for families of low income; garden education programs for children; intensive job training programs for teens; fresh food access points including three farmers’ markets; emergency food distribution that serves over 60 percent of all food boxes in the City; and collaborative food systems assessment and planning activities. These activities are woven into a multi pronged public health approach to building a secure, equitable and durable food system. Peer-led Nutrition Education: The NC’s Somali Nutrition Initiative reached 286 women through 56 cooking education programs in 2010. These classes were led by five Somali and Somali-Bantu peer educators, all of whom are women of limited income. Participants learned how to cook healthy, affordable meals, learned simple nutrition messages, and learned about the importance of physical activity. Eating healthy and being active reduces risk for nutrition-related diseases that are reaching dangerously high levels among women in the African refugee community in Lewiston.
Public Policy
The Maine Women’s Policy Center ($8,000) is working to protect women’s reproductive health from the harmful impact of toxic chemicals in consumer products, defend reproductive privacy at the state and national level, and promote an end to discrimination. Above all, they champion public policies to improve economic stability for women. With grant support from the Maine Women’s Fund, MWPC will continue to develop grassroots organizing, public policy development and education and more to continue to champion an economic security agenda that puts the needs of women at its center. Visit our Inspirational Stories page to learn more about how the Maine Women’s Policy Center is making change happen.
