Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton annual report highlights how it builds community through 2023 grants of nearly $3.9 million

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Tags: Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton , Foundations

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The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton works to build community by supporting and enhancing the efforts of those who directly serve others. The foundation recently released its 2023 annual report, which highlights how it spent the past year building community along with its partners through $3,887,778 in grants in three categories of need: foundation-led initiatives, strategic collaborations and responsive grants.

With foundation-led initiatives, the focus is on systemic change in order to make a lasting difference within complex community concerns: early childhood education, homelessness, and behavioral health. With foundation-led initiatives, the focus is on systemic change in order to make a lasting difference within complex community concerns: early childhood education, homelessness, and behavioral health. Responsive grants support immediate needs so that established nonprofit organizations are better able to heal, feed, guide, serve, and give hope — all essential for building community.

Below are highlights of some foundation-led initiatives.

Read the full annual report here

Building Synergy Through Foundation-Led Initiatives

Domestic Violence Project, Inc.

Domestic Violence Project, Inc. (DVPI) helps victims of domestic violence become survivors of domestic violence. The emergency and supportive services DVPI provides are essential. They help our neighbors meet the most basic need there is: the need for safety and security.

The Sisters of Charity Foundation has been a longtime supporter. Sustaining DVPI’s work speaks to the heart of our mission.

Alarmingly, federal funding for victim services has been decreasing. DVPI continues to provide emergency shelter, transitional housing, legal advocacy services, and outreach services amid dwindling funding levels and a perpetually uncertain fiscal future.

A community without resources for victims of domestic violence is unimaginable. As federal funding has waned, we’ve stepped in to help strengthen infrastructure. In 2023, we partnered with DVPI to support shelter operations, ensuring services could continue to be provided throughout Stark County. We also committed to partnering with DVPI leadership to help them innovate to secure additional funding or develop new resources, because DVPI is a fundamental element of the safe community our neighbors need.

Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids (SPARK)

Our focus on early childhood has been a cornerstone of our work since our inception. The Sisters of Charity Foundation created the Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids (SPARK) program, a program that provides a kindergarten readiness advantage for families with preschool-age children, nurturing it as it grew from an idea to a plan to a sheer force for school readiness success. We cheered as the program went on to reach thousands of families throughout Ohio.

SPARK has transformed in surprising ways, achieving beyond anything we had envisioned. The program has flourished in the capable hands of the Early Childhood Resource Center (ECRC). The ECRC also emerged from a Foundation initiative; as with SPARK, it has achieved well beyond what was imagined.

SPARK operations are the responsibility of the ECRC, and SPARK replication sites are operated by organizations throughout the state. In 2023, the Sisters of Charity Foundation supported the expansion of programming for two replicating organizations here in Stark County: the Early Childhood Education Alliance serves Alliance SPARK families and AHEAD, Inc. serves Massillon SPARK families.

Program sustainability and expansion at these SPARK sites will give even more children a better start. SPARK
participants significantly outscore non-participating peers on Ohio’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment,
indicating that they enter kindergarten more ready to succeed. The scores are also a strong predictor of school success. In 2022, nearly half of Stark County SPARK kids scored high enough to predict that they will read on grade level in third grade, compared to 30 percent of their non-SPARK peers.

The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System.