Matsui Announces Over $2 Million in Grants for Local Organizations to Hire 253 AmeriCorps Members
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, May 26, 2011
CONTACT: MARA LEE
(202) 225-7163
Matsui Announces Over $2 Million in Grants for Local Organizations to Hire 253 AmeriCorps Members
CA Today, Congresswoman Doris Matsui (CA-05) announced that two local Sacramento organizations will receive a combined $2,087,419 in AmeriCorps grants from the Corporation for National and Community Service, and will be able to hire 253 AmeriCorps members as a result. Congresswoman Matsui, Co-Chair of the bipartisan National Service Caucus, has been continually supportive of both AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service, and has helped lead the fight for adequate federal funding to support programs like these in the last several Congresses.
As our region continues to work toward economic recovery, these funds will help put 253 AmeriCorps participants to work in our community, said Congresswoman Matsui. Not only will today's grants create new jobs, they will create jobs at two of our local nonprofits that work each and every day to make our community a better, safer, and healthier place. I am thrilled that Sacramento will be receiving these funds and recieving the benefits they provide.
North Highlands-based Child Abuse Prevention Council, Inc. will receive $1,436,679 to support both their Birth and Beyond program and their Youth Investment Center. AmeriCorps members who participate in the Birth and Beyond program will provide parenting education and support services to both expectant parents and those with young children who reside in Sacramento neighborhoods where children are most at-risk of abuse and neglect. Birth and Beyond members will also conduct weekly home visits and parenting education workshops that improve practices and reduce families involvement with Child Protective Services.
Members who serve in the Council's Youth Prevention Center will work as Youth Mentors and Volunteer Coordinators, focusing their service on communication, daily living, work and study skills, home life, self-care, social relationships, money management, and career planning. They will assist foster youth with their academics in the classroom and during summer school by providing homework assistance and meeting with foster parents via home visits.
The City of Sacramento's START program will get $650,740 for their Get Fit Now! initiative, and be able to hire 124 AmeriCorps members. These AmeriCorps members will teach fitness and nutrition education to children grades 1 through 6, and will also offer adult fitness classes for children's parents at Family Nights held every six weeks. Additionally, they will establish and maintain school-based gardens where children will learn how to grow nutritional food. These are positions that would have gone unfilled without the influx of federal funds.
Today's grants are the result of the Fiscal Year 2011 AmeriCorps State and National funding competition, which continue the direction and priorities of the 2009 Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act and the Corporation's 2011-2015 Strategic Plan. Congresswoman Matsui was a co-sponsor of the Serve America Act when it was enacted in the 111th Congress.
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