Two organizations centered around the youth and child development each recently received $5,000 grants from the Scripps Howard Foundation - The Children’s Museum of Montana and CASA CAN.
“This grant is definitely opening doors for us” said Sherrie Neff, director of the Children’s Museum. “We were pretty excited just to hear that we were going in the running and are very humbled and grateful.”
Child literacy is important to the Children’s Museum and they hope to put their funds to use in after-school programs; Neff said, “We believe reading is very much an important building block on all other education. To truly ignite a passion for lifelong learning, reading has to be one of the basic foundations to getting them there.”
CASA CAN plans to put their funding toward helping kids in the foster program stay connected with their cultures.
“We want to make sure that these foster families who don’t know what the child’s culture is, that they do have access to that child’s culture so that child is not going to grow up lost in the system without access to their culture” explained CASA director Mercedes Oxford-Kemp.
CASA-CAN recruits and trains volunteers to represent the best interest of children in abuse and neglect proceedings in Cascade County. Visit the CASA-CAN website to learn more about the organization, including this overview:
CASA Advocates are Community Volunteers who give their time, voice and commitment to a victim of child abuse to help ensure that their rights are protected so they will not get lost in an overcrowded child welfare system. No experience necessary - all you need is heart and a bit of time. Training provided. Volunteers are needed to meet CASA's goal of providing a voice for every child who needs one and breaking the cycle of child abuse in this generation.
The Children's Museum of Montana is located at 22 Railroad Square in downtown Great Falls (behind the Civic Center). Click here to visit the website.
