The Paterson One Square Mile Rapid Response Community ReGrant Program, a key part of the One Square Mile initiative, graciously funded by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation through Montclair State University, is thrilled to announce the recipients of its second grant cycle. This program is designed to support community-based organizations serving Paterson’s 1st, 4th, and 5th Wards, and who are committed to making a positive impact. The program has awarded a total of four grants amounting to $159,597. The recipients of the Paterson One Square Mile Rapid Response Community ReGrant Program grants are as follows:
Chosen Generation Community Corporation – Tier 1 Recovery
Chosen Generation Community Corporation (CGCC) is a nonprofit organization whose mission statement is to empower men and women to wholeness and develop mature individuals who are positioned for greatness in all areas of life. As a long-term outpatient facility for substance use disorders, CGCC’s TIER 1 Model provides comprehensive services including treatment planning, advocacy, mental health, substance abuse recovery, spirituality, and clinical therapy for sustained self-discovery. This holistic approach has helped numerous participants achieve sustained recovery.
Chosen Generation Community Corporation will utilize its award to address the surge in overdose deaths in communities of color, focusing on advancing racial equity and harm reduction throughout Paterson, specifically in the 1st, 4th, and 5th Wards.
Inner City Ensemble
The Inner City Ensemble is a grassroots organization, founded in 1973 with the original intent to provide free dance and theater training to local at-risk teenagers throughout the city of Paterson. Its current iteration of the organization, re-established in 2011, serves as a safe space for Paterson residents cultivating cultural equity, providing healing centered engaged free arts training to local youth, while also creating a sense of community, belonging, and positive connections through shared experiences and a mix of different cultures.
The Inner City Ensemble will utilize its award to hire a Program Coordinator and a Production Consultant to work alongside the Executive Artistic Director, and purchase production equipment to expand their Dual Language Arts Program. Inner City Ensemble was a recipient of the initial Paterson One Square Mile Rapid Response Community ReGrant Program.
New Destiny Success Center Inc.
New Destiny Success Center Inc. was established in response to the disproportionate number of black and brown children subjected to child abuse and neglect in Paterson’s 5th Ward neighborhood. Their core capacities as an agency are rooted in family/parent engagement, early learning development, youth development, health access and building collaborative partnerships which directly benefit the well-being of families and children. For the last 10 years, New Destiny Success Center Inc. has also served as the full service community School provider at Frank R. Lautenberg School #6.
New Destiny Family Success Centers Inc will utilize its award by hosting monthly enrichment experiences throughout the school year at Frank R. Lautenberg School #6 to improve school attendance: “Attendance Celebration B.A.S.H (Beating Absenteeism, Steady and Hard)”. The school has one of the highest rates of absenteeism with 50.32% of students chronically absent this past school year. Incentivizing students to attend school regularly boosts motivation, reinforces positive behavior, engages students, involves parents, raises awareness, improves tracking, and helps build consistent attendance habits. Activities will include a mobile gaming truck, a glam truck, and food trucks that will be for students who exhibit the best and most improved attendance that month.
Wafa House, Inc.
Wafa House, Inc. founded in 2004, is the only holistic provider of culturally sensitive services to domestic violence (DV) survivors in northern New Jersey. They provide comprehensive services with the intensity and duration necessary to fully address DV and sexual violence related issues, provide services to both adults and children and culturally specific resources and language skills necessary to serve Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Spanish populations. Over the past 20 years of service to predominantly Muslim and immigrant survivors of violence in Paterson and beyond, Wafa House has evolved from crisis referral and intervention to now providing a wide array of holistic recovery services for survivors in need.
Wafa House, Inc. will utilize its award by hiring consultants, The Management Center, to create and implement a strategic plan to guide their organization in strengthening their mission, organizational culture, community outreach, identity, and capacity building.