GREAT NEWS – The Weinland Park Annie Casey Grant Proposal
THE ANNIE E. CASEY FOUNDATION WILL JOIN
PARTNERSHIP IN WEINLAND PARK NEIGHBORHOOD
The Annie E. Casey Foundation on November 15 announced that it is forming partnerships in three cities, including the Weinland Park neighborhood of Columbus, to improve the well-being of children and their families through community- and family-focused innovations.
Over the next two years, the Casey Foundation will award up to $150,000 annually to the Weinland Park Collaborative, a partnership of more than a dozen institutions and agencies that is working with the civic association and residents to improve the quality of neighborhood life. The foundation is making the same commitment to neighborhood partnerships in Buffalo, N.Y., and San Antonio, Texas.
The partners in each city will adopt a two-generation approach – a key component of the Casey Foundation’s work – by providing programs for children that focus on healthy development, growth and education, as well as services for adults that concentrate on parenting, job skills and financial security.
“After more than two decades of community change work throughout the country, the Casey Foundation strongly believes that children do well when their families do well, and that families thrive when they live in supportive communities,” said Ryan Chao, the foundation’s vice president for civic sites and community change. “We are excited to work with likeminded partners in these cities to develop a more family-focused approach to community development.”
The Weinland Park Collaborative (WPC) began in 2010 in Weinland Park, a neighborhood southeast of Ohio State University’s Columbus campus. With a comprehensive approach to neighborhood revitalization, the WPC’s partners have invested in renovated and new housing and in the residents through programs involving employment, education, health, public safety, youth development and civic engagement.
“We have made tremendous progress in improving public safety and the appearance of my neighborhood,” said Joyce Hughes, president of the Weinland Park Community Civic Association. “I am excited about this new partnership with the Casey Foundation because it will bring added focus to help my neighbors, particularly our young families, to improve their lives as the whole neighborhood is uplifted.”
The WPC is an organic partnership of philanthropic institutions, local government, non-profit agencies, private businesses, and the Weinland Park Community Civic Association.
“We welcome the Casey Foundation to our partnership for the expertise and resources it will bring to our work,” said Ellen Moss Williams, co-chair of the WPC and president and CEO of Godman Guild Association, a 114-year-old human services organization based in Weinland Park. “The Casey Foundation will help us determine effective strategies and programs and then take the lessons we learn to other neighborhoods in Columbus and around the nation. We are thrilled that the Guild’s mission aligns so well with the Casey Foundation’s objectives for the transformation of families and communities.”
“A critical aspect of the WPC’s work has been its inclusive and cooperative structure,” explained Lisa Courtice, the other WPC co-chair and executive vice president of The Columbus Foundation. “The WPC’s diverse organizational members and residents have figured out together what should be done and have worked cooperatively to implement. We will benefit from the Casey Foundation’s extensive experience in working with vulnerable families and will have the opportunity to interact with and learn from the partnerships in the other two cities.”
In addition to the WPC, the Casey Foundation is partnering with:
the Buffalo Promise Neighborhood, a collaborative effort of M&T Bank, the Westminster Foundation and others, which focuses on a northeast Buffalo neighborhood.
the Eastside Promise Neighborhood and the Choice Neighborhood initiative, led by United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County and the San Antonio Housing Authority, which are at work in a community east of the city’s downtown with nearly 18,000 residents.
The three initiatives possess several of the attributes that the Casey Foundation believes are key to successful neighborhood transformation, such as the presence of an established partnership of local organizations and public agencies; high-quality education, health and other support services for children; robust job training and financial education programs for adults; actively engaged parents and residents; and access to affordable housing to promote residential stability.
The Casey Foundation will collaborate with its local partners over the next one to two years to design, pilot and plan for the broader implementation of programs and strategies geared toward families with young children within the communities they serve. Once these steps are successfully completed, the foundation plans to provide additional support, as well as $750,000 to $1 million annually, to implement and evaluate these services over the next several years.
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Contacts: Sue Lin Chong, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, (410) 223-2836 and media@aecf.org; and Lisa Courtice, The Columbus Foundation, (614) 251-4000 and lcourtice@columbusfoundation.org.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private national philanthropy that creates better futures for the nation’s children by strengthening families, building economic opportunities and transforming neighborhoods into safer and healthier places to live, work and grow. For more information, visit www.aecf.org.
The members of the Weinland Park Collaborative
Funding partners: Campus Partners, Cardinal Health, City of Columbus, The Columbus Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation and United Way of Central Ohio.
Agencies and associations: Columbus City Schools, Community Properties of Ohio Management Services, Godman Guild Association, Habitat for Humanity Mid-Ohio, Wagenbrenner Development, Weinland Park Community Civic Association, and The Ohio State University (College of Education and Human Ecology, Knowlton School of Architecture, OSU Extension, Office of Outreach and Engagement, and Schoenbaum Family Center).
The boundaries of the Weinland Park neighborhood are North High Street on the west, the CSX railroad tracks on the east, East Fifth Avenue on the south and Chittenden Avenue on the north.
