The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health Awards $2.2 Million in Grants

PALO ALTO – The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health has approved $2.2 million in new grants to 17 nonprofit organizations that serve children and youth in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, foundation President and CEO Stephen Peeps announced Dec. 18.

The awards range from $50,000 to $300,000, over one to three years. The funds support programs in two focus areas: protecting children, ages 0 to 5, from injury, with an emphasis on preventing child abuse and neglect; and promoting behavioral, mental and emotional health in preteens.

Ten grants totaling $1.3 million were awarded to San Mateo County. The grantees and their awards are:

Asian American Recovery: $200,000, over three years, for “Project Lakas,” meaning inherent strength. The project works to promote healthy development of Filipino youth in Daly City who are at high risk for unhealthy behaviors.

Bay Area Community Resources: $150,000, over three years, for the New Perspectives Middle School Youth Enrichment and Leadership Program. The program strives to prevent high-risk behaviors and promote the healthy development of middle-school youth in East Palo Alto.

The Cleo Eulau Center: $100,000, over three years, to evaluate the effectiveness of a program that reaches troubled youth through teachers. The program provides schools with mental health professionals who consult with teachers and help them identify and put into practice methods that promote resiliency for high-risk youth.

The Edgewood Center for Children: $200,000, over two years, to expand its San Mateo Kinship Support Network program for children being raised by grandparents or other relatives. The program, which matches each child with a community worker, will serve children ages 9 to 13.

Friends for Youth: $100,000, over two years, for its Mentoring Assistance Program. Funds will help to produce a mentoring handbook, an age-specific activity guide for mentors and consultation to other agencies with mentoring programs.

Pacific Islander Outreach: $100,000 over three years, for its Parenting Program. The program targets Pacific Islander parents living in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park who are at risk of abusing and neglecting their children.

Samaritan House: $102,000, over two years, to support the hiring of a full-time community worker who will focus on outreach to families with children, ages 0 to 5, who are at risk of abuse and neglect.

Shelter Network of San Mateo County: A two-year, $100,000 grant to support a “0 – 5 Children’s Program” for homeless children and their families. The program includes activities designed to reduce stress and decrease child maltreatment by increasing families’ skills and knowledge of available resources.

The Community Learning Center: $100,000, over two years, for an after-school program that takes place at the South San Francisco Public Library. The program works to build self-confidence, caring, and leadership, as well as academic skills, in third- to fifth-graders.

United Cerebral Palsy Association of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties: $100,000, over two years, to gather data on the maltreatment of children with disabilities, ages 0 to 5, in San Mateo County.

Seven grants totaling $ 952,000 were awarded to nonprofit organizations in Santa Clara County. The grantees and their awards are:

Big Brothers Big Sisters: $75,000, over two years, for a community-based mentoring program for preteens, ages 9 to 13. Ninety-five percent of the youth served come from single-parent households, primarily in San Jose, but also in Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Gatos.

Bill Wilson Center: $120,000, over three years, to launch a new program for sixth-graders at three middle schools in downtown San Jose. The program, called “Building Better Schools One Youth at a Time,” will be offered once a week during a class period and will focus on problem-solving, conflict resolution and leadership skills.

Children’s Health Council: $200,000 over two years, to implement an evaluation program for a Catholic Charities after-school program called Leadership, Ethnic and Academic Pride (LEAP).

Community Foundation Silicon Valley – “The Mayfair Improvement Initiative”: $150,000, over two years, to help support the “Truancy Collaboration for Pre-teens at Lee Mathson Middle School.

Community Solutions: $115,000, over two years, to establish an after-school program for preteens who live in the Lilly Gardens housing project in Gilroy. Youth will participate in arts and sports activities, receive homework assistance, work on computers and socialize. The grant will also help to launch a new parent education program that will provide support, skills and resources for positive parenting to overburdened parents of preteens.

Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY): $92,000, over three years, to help expand a “Law for Your Life Prevention” curriculum to seventh- and eighth-grade students at Dartmouth Middle School in central San Jose. The program, started by a Stanford law student in 1996, gives young people the opportunity to participate in group activities such as mock trials, mock debates and city council hearings.

YWCA: $200,000, over two years, to launch the “New Options – Middle School,” an after-school program for preteen girls and boys in East San Jose.

The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health makes community grants twice yearly. Funds for the grants program, which began in January 2000, comes from the foundation’s endowment. A partnership grant from the California Endowment helps support the foundation’s efforts in youth development and reducing high-risk behavior in preteens. To date, 60 agencies have received grants totaling $6.9 million from the foundation.

The foundation was established as a public charity in 1996, when the previously independent Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital became part of Stanford University Medical Center. The foundation’s mission is to “promote, protect, and sustain the physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral health of children.” It is wholly independent of the Los Altos-based David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

For more information about the foundation’s community grantmaking program, call (650) 736-0676, or visit the Web site, www.lpfch.org.