Recent Grants and Program Descriptions

Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County

Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County is the safe, positive place for kids in Whatcom County.  Since 1946, BGCWC has helped thousands of area youth in after school programs and recreational activities.  Our core program areas are: Education & Career Development, Character & Leadership Development, Health & Life Skills, The Arts, and Sports, Fitness & Recreation.  We instill in our youth a sense of belonging, a sense of usefulness, a sense of power and influence and a sense of competence.

The Moyer Foundation is helping to meet the needs of a struggling island community.   The geographically-isolated youth and teens of Lummi Island are the focus of this project.  This grant is helping to outreach to island youth and provide expanded teen services and educational and computer programs with positive adult role models in consistent and fun, engaging opportunities for these youth.

FareStart

FareStart provides a community that transforms lives by empowering homeless and disadvantaged individuals to achieve self-sufficiency through life skills, job training and employment in the food service industry. To achieve its mission, FareStart operates thriving businesses to provide both on-the-job training to trainees, as well as essential operating revenue to support training programs.

Funding from The Moyer Foundation will support the Youth Barista Training and Education program, a collaboration between FareStart and YouthCare that provides homeless and at-risk youth (ages 16-21) with training and services sufficient to stabilize their lives and re-engage with the community through the appropriate combination of employment, education, and stable housing.

First Place

First Place is both an elementary school and a social services agency for children and families struggling with the risks and realities of homelessness.  First Place serves over 1,000 individuals per year through a rigorous Kindergarten through 6th grade education program, extensive family support services, transitional housing, rental assistance, information and referral, and advocacy and empowerment programming. First Place programs focus on breaking the cycle of poverty and ending homelessness.

Funding from The Moyer Foundation directly helps open the doors of a brand new Early Learning program, which extends our continuum of care and education to children between the ages of 3 and 5.  Numerous reports have described the urgent need for early child education for children who are homeless, in addition to services which can alleviate the trauma caused by their family’s homelessness.  A safe, enriching preschool environment will normalize the situation for these children, prepare them for kindergarten, and assist their families by providing a viable preschool alternative in the same location where the parents are receiving services and older siblings are attending school.

Intercommunity Mercy Housing

Intercommunity Mercy Housing (IMH) provides quality, affordable, service-enriched housing to individuals and families who are economically poor. IMH was established in 1991 through the collaboration of five local communities of Catholic women religious determined to address the growing housing crisis in Washington State. Since then, IMH has successfully developed over 1,700 affordable homes across the state, and each year serves more than 3,800 low-income children and adults. www.intercommunitymercyhousing.org.

Grant funding from The Moyer Foundation will support the Bilingual Afterschool Program at Sterling Meadows Apartments in Bellingham. Completed in 2002, Sterling Meadows was developed specifically to meet the housing needs of Hispanic farm worker families. Homework Club is the major component of the program and takes place five days a week during the school year, focusing on academic and social development. Activities include one-on-one tutoring and homework help, guided vocabulary exercises to support literacy, quiet reading, independent study, healthy snacks and structured social time, supervised computer lab, arts and crafts, and other group activities. The program also works to increase the connection between families and schools, including hosting an annual Back-to-School night where families can register their children for school and receive free backpacks and school supplies.

Northwest Center

Since 1965, Northwest Center has been advocating for the rights and independence of people with developmental disabilities.  Our innovative programs and services have helped transform lives and influence change for adults and children with disabilities both locally and across the nation.  From early childhood education to adult vocational and life skills instruction, we provide supports that help people with special needs live successful, productive lives.

Hanen© Parent Education Classes provide strategies and methods to promote speech and language development for parents whose children have limited or no speech/language skills.  Communication is a crucial part of our interactions with the world, including our families.  When a child’s speech and language skills are delayed or absent, the stresses on the family can be enormous.  The program provides parents with valuable tools to help their developmentally delayed and/or disabled child learn essential language and communication skills, increasing their child’s opportunities for success.  Parents who complete this class are better able to interact with their child, reinforce the skills that prepare them for kindergarten and give more time to other children in the family.

Olive Crest

Olive Crest is a therapeutic foster care placement agency founded in Southern California in 1973 and invited to Washington in 1999.  Olive Crest specializes in caring for children that whose reason for being in foster care stems from having experienced extreme abuse and neglect.  The wraparound approach to care that each child receives is as unique as the child receiving treatment.   Olive Crest is dedicated to preventing child abuse, treating and educating at-risk children, and preserving the family…One Life at a Time®

The recent grant so generously given by The Moyer Foundation will be allocated within our programs division to enhance several of the services that are offered to our children and families.  After school outings with case managers, music lessons, horseback riding lesson, tutoring sessions and cultural activities are a few of the expenses that will be covered through The Moyer Foundation funding. 

Our Place

Our Place is an emergency services center in Spokane's West Central neighborhood.  The organization is a grass-roots coalition of individuals and churches who came together over 20 years ago to address unmet needs in the neighborhood.  Clients can receive emergency food, clothing and hygiene products, along with assistance with rent, utilities and transportation.  Two thirds of those who come to Our Place are elderly, disabled or under the age of 18.

Due to the generosity of The Moyer Foundation, the children we serve will be able to have new shoes to start school!  91% of the children in our neighborhood receive free or reduced lunch, so a new pair of shoes is usually out of their family budget.  With this grant, children will be able to select a pair of shoes that fit their foot size and their individuality.  We believe a new pair of shoes will provide these children with the foundation to be active and to stay healthy.  We know that stress on their parents is relieved when they don't have to worry about how to pay for a new pair of shoes.  This gift meets a simple, but very important need.  It has been a wonderful experience to see the looks of joy and relief on the faces of the parents when they are offered this gift.  And we can picture the children running, skipping and jumping, energized by their brand-new shoes!

Rise n’ Shine

For 20 years Rise n’ Shine has served the emotional support needs of children and teens affected by HIV/AIDS.   Hand in hand, the children walk together with volunteers and Rise n’ Shine staff who are committed to enhancing their often chaotic lives.  Children are eligible to participate in any or all of Rise n’ Shine’s age appropriate programs:  week long residential summer camp, Magic Circle peer support groups, the mentor program, teen Stepping Up program and retreats, educational advocacy, holiday gifts, back to school clothes and backpacks, and life enrichment activities. 
www.risenshine.org    

Through a grant from The Moyer Foundation, Rise n’ Shine will be able to continue providing Magic Circle support groups for ages 6 through 13.  Magic Circle is a safe confidential setting for children to work through anticipatory grief or as appropriate, grief and loss.  In addition healthy family dynamics and feelings are explored as they learn how to process fears and concerns about the disease.   Children also receive HIV/AIDS education.  Crucial to this education is learning the connection between their individual actions and personal responsibility in preventing infection.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul

The donation from The Moyer Foundation makes an important difference in the lives of children living in extreme poverty. These funds will be used exclusively in our “Beds for Children” program. Our cost to provide a bed for a child is $137. This includes bed frame, mattress, box spring, pillow, pillowcase, two sheets, and two blankets. The children and families we work with live in desperate poverty, and the boys and girls that receive our beds are otherwise sleeping on cardboard boxes, scraps of old carpet, or on the bare floor. Many have never had a real bed of their own. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is a worldwide charitable organization founded in the 1830s. Active in Snohomish County since 1928, our organization is based in the traditional values of justice, compassion, and service to others. We are a stand-alone and locally controlled 501 (c) (3) non-profit. All agency activities and finances are overseen by a volunteer Board of Directors. Services are provided by trained volunteers working directly with the most vulnerable of our neighbors. While St. Vincent de Paul has its origins in the Catholic faith and draws great strength from a deep well of spiritual conviction, we assist our neighbors without regard to race, faith, language, culture or any other discriminating factor.

The Healing Center

The Healing Center offers comprehensive grief-support services for adults, children and families who have experienced the death of a family member. Our mission is to provide a safe, supportive, confidential and nurturing environment for people to move through their grief. Our community offers a unique, long-term, multi-faceted approach to grief support, combining structured therapy sessions with informal events and social networks. The Healing Center is a safe place for children and teens to share their experience of loss, understand the grieving process, and learn coping healthy strategies. They and their families are welcome as long as they want and need to be a part of our support community. The grant from The Moyer Foundation helps fund our youth and teen programs for 2008-2009, enabling us to meet the needs of more young people in the local community who have lost a parent or other loved one. These funds are being used for our in-house support groups for toddlers through teens, our summer programs which include day camp and other special outings, and our ongoing school-outreach project. 

Toddler Learning Center

Toddler Learning Center (TLC) has been serving infants and toddlers who have disabilities or developmental delays on Whidbey Island  for the last 23 years.  Therapists, teachers, and family support staff strive to maximize their capabilities and development during the critical growth period of their first three years.  We partner closely with each family to enhance learning opportunities for each child within daily routines.

The Moyer Foundation has helped TLC to provide continuity of services and support over the summer months when funding is minimal or nonexistent.  As the only developmental program on the Island, it has also enabled us to respond immediately to new children who are referred to us weekly.  It has made a great difference for many little ones and their families.

Youth Resources

Youth Resources is a non-profit organization founded in the fall of 2003 to meet the needs of at-risk & homeless youth in Pierce County.  Youth Resources offers housing, resources, counseling, support and solutions to homeless youth ages 13-21. Youth Resources opened in August of 2005 its first transitional housing complex in Graham for young males ages 18-21 and in 2008 transitional housing for females 18-21. Youth Resources has been serving youth in both the Franklin Pierce & Bethel School Districts since the fall of 2003 with emergency supplies sites supplying  personal hygiene products and non perishable food to students in need.