/ / / /

Announcing Our Youth Partnership and Opportunity Fund Grantees

By Stoneleigh Foundation | June 29, 2022

Youth Partnership Grantees

The Stoneleigh Foundation’s 2022 Youth Partnership Grantees are all youth-led or youth-centric organizations that provide direct assistance and leadership opportunities to young people or advocate for policy change.

Creative Resilient Youth (CRY)
CRY is an intergenerational collective promoting equitable access to mental health supports by developing youth-led models of care. Young people learn to define and communicate about mental healthcare on their own terms and in partnership with their peers.  CRY also advocates for reforms that address injustices in the youth mental health system.  This grant will provide space, staffing, and direct financial support for young people to participate in CRY’s programming, events, and advocacy.

Juvenile Law Center (JLC)
JLC’s Youth Advocacy Program empowers young people with child welfare or youth justice experience to lead systems change efforts.  JLC’s youth advocates recently released a new strategic plan.  This grant will fund JLC’s ongoing operation of the Youth Advocacy Program and will provide a stipend for one Youth Advocacy Alumni Fellow.

UrbEd
UrbEd is a student-led nonprofit advocating for safe, healthy, and fully funded public schools. Through UrbEd’s outreach and advocacy, young people in Philadelphia learn how to harness their power as student representatives, reimagine health and safety in their schools, and organize as a community.  This grant will allow UrbEd to continue its organizing and capacity building work while also funding stipends for middle and high school students to participate in its programming.

Young Artist Program (YAP)
YAP centers BIPOC & LGBTQ+ youth artists in an afterschool setting where they explore art and build relationships to grow their confidence, leadership, and political consciousness. Through YAP, young people learn about issues that are central to their lives, such as mental health, housing, and incarceration.  This grant will support YAP to expand its capacity and strengthen the quality of its services and events for young people.

Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (YASP)
YASP is a youth-led advocacy organization working to advance alternatives to incarceration. YASP directly supports currently and formerly incarcerated young people, hosts a restorative justice youth diversion program, and manages Philadelphia’s first-ever youth-focused participatory defense hub (developed with the help of former Stoneleigh Fellow Raj Jayadev).  This grant will fund a youth organizer to grow YASP’s state-level advocacy, facilitate workshops with young people, and support families participating in YASP’s participatory defense hub.

 


Opportunity Fund Grantees

The Stoneleigh Foundation’s 2022 Opportunity Fund grantees presented critical issues and strategies that the Foundation determined to be worthy of further exploration. The Opportunity Fund provides flexible support outside of the standard Fellowship framework to explore timely and innovative initiatives or approaches.

Oronde McClain | Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting
The Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting (IBGVR) will hire Oronde McClain as a Credible Messenger Newsroom Liaison to build relationships with local Philadelphia news outlets and improve media reporting of community-based gun violence. Oronde, an activist, organizer, and gun violence survivor, is connected to a large local network and will draw upon his experience and his relationships with community-based partners to strengthen IBGVR’s work.  This grant aligns complements the work of Stoneleigh Fellow Jessica Beard, who partners with IBGVR to reform the way gun violence is portrayed in Philadelphia’s television newsrooms.

Quinzelle Bethea El | Fathers First Housing
Quinzelle Bethea El is the founder of Growing Resilient Communities (GRC), a nonprofit organization that is building a housing network where all community members are accepted regardless of background. Quinzelle will strengthen his capacity-building plans for GRC’s Fathers First Housing program, which addresses system gaps that impact non-custodial fathers who are experiencing homelessness.

Our Youth Partnership and Opportunity Fund Grants are by invitation only. Stoneleigh does not accept solicitations for these programs.