Strong Women, Strong Girls awarded Mentoring Matching Grant
Boston, Fall 2018 – Strong Women, Strong Girls Boston has announced it has been awarded a Mentoring Matching Grant of $7,500 from Mass Mentoring Partnership (MMP), a statewide organization fueling the movement to expand empowering youth-adult relationships in Massachusetts. SWSG is one of 37 mentoring programs throughout the Commonwealth to receive a Mentoring Matching Grant.
Funding for the grants stems from the Massachusetts FY19 budget, where it was funded at $750,000, through the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. This represents a 50% increase in state funding over the previous year. Since 2009, MMP has awarded more than $4 million in Mentoring Matching Grants to youth serving organizations throughout Massachusetts. This year’s grants will create and support more than 2,000 high-quality matches statewide. Awarded funding is intended to create or support existing mentoring matches and help to increase positive attitudes toward school. The Mentoring Matching Grants is unique in its use of private-sector support, as grantees are required to match, dollar-for-dollar, the total amount awarded with cash or in-kind resources. The grant will support SWSG’s all-female mentoring program that serves over 600 elementary and middle school girls in Boston every year.
“It is great to join the community of mentoring organizations in Massachusetts through our relationship with Mass Mentoring Partners,” states Patricia McGuiness, Program Officer, “We look forward to utilizing this funding to further support the girls and women in our community.”
“We are proud to invest in Strong Women, Strong Girls with a Mentoring Matching Grant,” MMP President and CEO Lily Mendez said. “This critical funding will allow Strong Women, Strong Girls to create or support existing mentoring matches and help to increase positive attitudes toward school, ensuring youth are given every opportunity to develop into productive, successful adults.”
About Strong Women, Strong Girls
Strong Women, Strong Girls (SWSG) is an award-winning nonprofit delivering an innovative after-school mentoring program focused on supporting pre-adolescent girls to realize her inner strengths to dream and do. Our multi-generational, curriculum-based mentoring program empowers girls to imagine a broader future through a curriculum grounded on female role models delivered by college women mentors, who are themselves mentored by professional women.
Our work focuses on 6 key outcomes for the girls in our program: Connection, Caring, Contribution, Character, Competence, and Confidence. We work with girls from 3rd through 5th grade in small group mentoring sessions to achieve these outcomes, utilizing a skill-based curriculum exhibiting empowerment of female role-models. Trained by our staff, undergraduate women facilitate these sessions utilizing a curriculum that builds connections and confidence. Our model promotes a pipeline of leadership that creates cycles of mutual empowerment.
When we mentor young girls, we also empower them and allow them to embrace their self-confidence, which enables them to break through the barriers that statistically weigh them down. SWSG Boston understands that there are multiple trends in our community that necessitate our work. Mentoring young girls from historically marginalized communities is important.
Learn more at www.swsg.org and follow SWSG on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
About Mass Mentoring Partnership
Mass Mentoring Partnership (MMP) is fueling the movement to expand empowering youth-adult relationships to meet the needs of communities across Massachusetts. With offices in Boston and in Holyoke, MMP serves hundreds of mentoring programs and youth development organizations statewide supporting thousands of youth in mentoring relationships. www.massmentors.org
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