The Get Grounded Foundation Awards Grants to Six Programs Serving Denver's At-Risk Youth

DENVER, Aug. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- GroundFloor Media (GFM) and its sister agency, CenterTable, announced the Get Grounded Foundation has awarded its latest round of community grants to six outstanding local programs supporting youth services. More than $21,000 was granted to Children's Farms of America, Denver Children's Advocacy Center, The Family Tree, Havern School, Illuminate Colorado, and Platte Forum. The programs were selected for their efforts to get a new or innovative program off the "ground floor" in the areas of child abuse and neglect, youth behavioral health and/or childhood hunger relief. To date, the Foundation has granted more than $100,000 in community grants.

A volunteer committee made up of individuals from the sister agencies reviewed the spring 2018 round of grant applications. The deadline for applications for the fall 2018 grant cycle is Friday, October 12, 2018.

The Spring 2018 Get Grounded Foundation Grant Recipients

Children's Farms of America is the facilitator of the FreshLo Farms for Kids project in the Montbello neighborhood in Denver. The organization' mission is to teach city kids about farming for their community by helping neighborhoods establish small urban farms where children learn about and then grow food for themselves and for their community. This grant will support a farm-school garden specialist to consult on urban agriculture, increasing yield in small spaces, working with children and adults on topics such as growing environments, pest management, nutrition and food preparation.

The Denver Children's Advocacy Center's (DCAC) mission is to prevent abuse, strengthen families and restore childhood. Its programs fall along a continuum of care that includes prevention, early intervention, crisis response, forensic interviews, mental health treatment and family support services.  Funds from the foundation will be used to help establish DCAC's Therapeutic Garden Program by supporting a garden specialist and purchasing children's gardening tools and gloves. The organization was awarded a Get Grounded grant in Spring 2017 for their Trauma-informed Yoga and Mindfulness Program.

"We are so thrilled to have the Get Grounded Foundation's support in starting our Children's Garden. We believe this project will empower our clients to take initiative and teach them that they can grow something beautiful," Inci Caballero Ellis, Community Connector at the Denver Children's Advocacy Center.

Family Tree was incorporated in 1976, and has been providing services to Colorado families in crisis for over 40 years. Family Tree was founded as a cooperative effort with local government, civic, and private agencies to coordinate existing human service resources, and to identify and develop innovative responses for youth and families in Jefferson County, Colorado, who were struggling to overcome child abuse and neglect and domestic violence. Due to high-quality services provided, along with expanding community needs, they broadened their service array to include individuals and families experiencing homelessness, as well as our service footprint to include the entire seven-county Denver metro area. Since 2005, they have been operating utilizing our three programmatic pillars of Child and Youth Services, Domestic Violence Services, and Housing and Family Stabilization Services. Funds from the Foundation will allow Family Tree to offer Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) groups to families with youth between the ages of 10-15 years old. This new service model will allow the organization to increase its impact on high-risk youth in Metro Denver.

Havern School was founded in 1966 by a visionary group of educators, the Sisters of Loretto. The Sisters recognized a need for a school to educate "perceptually handicapped" students, now referred to as students with learning disabilities, in the Denver area. Havern provides a unique learning environment for students K-8th grade with diagnosed learning disabilities. With families in nine Colorado counties and 47 zip codes, the school serves students with significant learning disabilities including dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, language-based disabilities, auditory and visual processing issues, sensory processing disorder, ADHD and working memory disorders. The school intends to use the Foundation grant to support its new visual arts classroom.

Illuminate Colorado is a statewide network of four established organizations – Colorado Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, Prevent Child Abuse Colorado, Colorado Chapter of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and Sexual Abuse Forever Ending – that build brighter childhoods through education, advocacy, and family support. Funds from the Foundation will be used to establish a Circle of Parents in Recovery Group in Denver, a specialized parent support group program for parents struggling to sustain substance use disorder recovery. Circle of Parents in Recovery focuses specifically on strengthening the family unit during this crucial, high-risk period.

"As the impact on children of caregiver substance use increases across the Denver Metro area and the state of Colorado, it is critical to support families as they seek to heal and recover together. The support from the Get Grounded Foundation will be critical in providing professional facilitation through our Circle of Parents in Recovery program for families impacted by substance use in the Denver Metro Area. In addition, we're thrilled at the opportunity to get our parent advisory council off the ground to ensure parents are effectively and meaningfully engaged in building a brighter future for their family," Jade Woodard, executive director, Illuminate Colorado.

Founded in 2002, PlatteForum provides opportunities for learning through the arts for Denver's most vulnerable youth and expands public access to programming high in artistic excellence. PlatteForum matches under-resourced youth with professional artists in intensive and long-term projects where they explore relevant social issues in a safe and inclusive environment, and develop personal, academic and life skills that stay with them forever. The 10-year graduation rate of 99.97% is a shining example of their commitment to youth and arts education. Foundation funds will help support a new collaboration between PlatteForum's ArtLab and Apprentice of Peace Youth Organization. PlatteForum was also a Fall 2015 and 2016 grant recipient.

About The Get Grounded Foundation
The Get Grounded Foundation, established in 2015, is based on two pillars of thought already firmly established at GFM and CenterTable. The first is that nonprofits, similar to many startup organizations, are entrepreneurial in their approach, yet often can't find seed funding to get a new or innovative program off the "ground floor." Second, it elevates the agencies' long giving history of focusing on causes that our team members are proud to support, including child abuse and neglect prevention, youth behavioral health and childhood hunger relief. As such, The Foundation provides one-year grants, which to date totals more than $100,000. These grants are funded by GFM and CenterTable's profits, for new innovative or entrepreneurial programs or projects within an existing, qualified nonprofit that directly supports the healthy development of at-risk youth between the ages of three and 13 in the Denver Metro area.

About GroundFloor Media & CenterTable
Founded in 2001, GroundFloor Media (GFM) is an award-winning communications firm, focused on public relations and crisis & issues management. Its sister agency, CenterTable, helps clients create direct and measurable connections with their target audiences through social media, digital advertising, website design and development, SEO, video production, creative campaigns and content development.

Headquartered in Denver, the agencies have more than 30 team members throughout the U.S., with global reach across 50 countries through membership in PROI, the industry's largest partnership of independent market-leading agencies.

GFM has been recognized four times by OUTSIDE magazine as one of the top five Best Places to Work in America. In addition, GFM was named a Certified B Corporation® in 2016 by the global nonprofit B Lab®. The certification recognizes companies meeting the highest global standards for corporate transparency, accountability and social and environmental performance.

For more information about GFM and CenterTable, visit groundfloormedia.com or meetatct.com and get to know the agencies via their blog, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Media Contact:
Elise Bishop
GroundFloor Media
303.865.8158
[email protected]

SOURCE The Get Grounded Foundation

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