Nairobi, Kenya
Heshima Children’s Center (Nairobi, Kenya) provides wrap-around services to the “hidden children” and their mothers from the slums and underclass of Nairobi including education, therapies, food, shelter, fresh water, employment opportunities, security and dignity. A $20,000 grant from The Jake Cassell Fund will allow Heshima to build small shops, made of recycled shipping containers for their graduates to have employment, including a food and drinks shop, a hair and nail shop and a used clothing shop.
Charlottesville, Virginia
Reclaimed Hope Initiative (Charlottesville, VA) nurtures families navigating foster care, adoption, and children with disabilities and providing a safe healing community in times of hardship in central Virginia and beyond. They offer services to each member of the family, including education, advocacy, mental health and respite support, and racial mentorship in order to maximize family preservation. Thrive, RHI's cornerstone program, encompasses parent support groups, in-home respite care, and connecting families to necessary resources in the community. A $20,000 Grant from The Jake Cassell Fund will support Thrive, enabling RHI to carry out its mission by working to strengthen, empower, and support families navigating foster care, adoption, and children with disabilities.
Pine Ridge Oglala-Lakota Reservation, South Dakota
Oglala-Lakota Technical School (Pine Ridge Oglala-Lakota Reservation, SD) serves indigenous students in one of the most impoverished counties in the USA, including an unusually high percentage of students that are in Special Education. One of the staff’s objectives for the students is to help them prepare for life after school. Many of these students do not have the opportunity to experience things that are more than an hour or so from their hometowns, oftentimes do not leave their town until they are older. A $20,000 Grant from The Jake Cassell Fund will support expansion of the Transition Services Liaison Project (TSLP) to enable students with disabilities to reach their maximum potential in their transition from high school to the adult world. The goal will be to increase those numbers to get more students either jobs or into post-secondary education.
Parkersburg, West Virginia
Wood County Society (Parkersburg, West Virginia) serves over 1,800 individuals with disabilities in eleven counties in West Virginia and Ohio comprising the “Mid Ohio Valley”, providing eighteen therapeutic, educational, and respite care programs. WCS established its Autism Connections Program in 2017 in collaboration with the Autism Training Center of Marshall University to provide direct support to families and youth diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and/or Down's Syndrome. A $20,000 Grant from The Jake Cassell Fund will expand the initiative to serve over 200 youth - 3 years of age to 10 years of age throughout their 12-county service region. The grant will support a three-tier approach to enhance WCS’s direct services to youth diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and/or Down's Syndrome, subsidizing salaries for OT and PT staffing, development of a state-of-the-art sensory room in support of fine and gross motor skill enhancement(s) and therapies and supporting purchase of tools. Resources are paramount to the success of this initiative.
Landover, Maryland
The Foundation Learning Center (Landover, MD), an affiliate of The Foundation Schools, is a 12-month school for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in grades K-12. FLC incorporates social skills training and a Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) system into their daily programming to emphasize social and emotional learning, integrate applied behavior analysis interventions, and enhance positive social interaction across all settings. A $20,000 Grant from The Jake Cassell Fund will fund the establishment of a Life Skills Program to give FLC’s students the tools and experiences that will equip and empower them to become productive young adults, rise above their challenges, and pursue their goals. The FLC Life Skills Program will be designed to teach essential career soft skills through learning how to operate a student-run cafe and student-run design and work center, as well as engaging in experiential learning field trips.