NOVEMBER, 2023: Life skills workshops, family programs, an innovative bilingual community resource directory, and more: That’s how Second Street Youth Center (SSYC), a Plainfield, New Jersey nonprofit, is employing the $100,000 grant it received from Impact 100 Garden State in 2022.
SSYC applied for the grant to support the expansion of its Community and Family Navigator Program, which was launched in early 2022. Roughly 80% of the families SSYC serves speak limited English and have low levels of English literacy. As a result, they often are unaware of the housing, healthcare, financial, and other support resources available to them and unable to navigate the associated application and enrollment systems.
SSYC’s Community and Family Navigator Program addresses these issues. The program, which is coordinated by a bilingual social worker, has several purposes:
- providing one-on-one counseling to parents and guardians to help them access needed services;
- offering family-based programs that help parents become more involved in their children’s education;
- sponsoring community-based workshops to address life skills and health and mental health topics; and
- compiling and maintaining a bilingual community resource directory.
Since receiving the Impact100 Garden State grant, SSYC has published, promoted, and distributed a comprehensive community resource guide in both English and Spanish. The guide, which is available in hard copy and online, is being broadly requested. “This resource directory is a true example of leveraged impact,” says SSYC Executive Director Leah Dade Cates.. “Every day, we receive requests for it. There is no way we could have created an outcome of this magnitude without Impact100 Garden State’s $100,000 grant. Each member should know that her $1,000 donation will impact more than 30,000 in Plainfield and beyond.”
In addition to creating the resource guide, in the first three quarters of 2023, the Navigator Program has helped over 100 families apply for and obtain health insurance, SNAP (food stamp) benefits, and rent and utility assistance. SSYC has also held two family engagement programs, three workshops that were open to the community, and a community resource fair.
SSYC has been serving Plainfield, New Jersey for over 50 years. It offers free, full-day bilingual preschool and pre-K to all Plainfield residents, with a goal of making sure kids are ready for kindergarten. SSYC’s after-school program provides a safe learning and recreational environment for elementary school children while their parents are at work. Both of these programs have earned accreditation (and re-accreditation) from the National Association of Education of Young Children. Learn more about SSYC at www.ssycinc.org.