Harbus Foundation
1999 Grant Recipients

Contact:
Carrie L. Lascell
617-547-9086

April 14, 1999

The Bill of Rights Education Project will receive an $8,000 grant to fund the publication of its youth newspaper, Rising Times, which provides high school students involved in the Project HIP-HOP program an opportunity to teach other students about their experiences on a summer civil rights tour in the South. A 1998 grant from the Harbus Foundation allowed the organization to first publish the newspaper last year.

Three teachers at Brighton High School will receive a $5,000 grant to fund the second year of their SCORE Higher program, a fun and effective after-school SAT preparation program. Thomas Haferd, AnnMarie John, and Toby Romer received a grant in 1998 to begin the program, and saw positive results in the test scores of the teens who participated.

A $10,000 will be awarded to the Thomas Gardner Elementary School in Allston to support the expansion of a new program called Reading While Listening. Aimed to increase the literacy skills and enthusiasm of young students, the program provides students with the chance to read quality books along with a recorded tape of the book at special reading stations. A pilot of the program among 5th grade students showed remarkable success.

$10,000 will be provided to the Hyde Square Task Force in Jamaica Plain in support of its Youth Serving Youth program, which serves primarily Latino students in the neighborhood. The program, which includes an after school program for students in grades 1-5, an evening program for kids in grades 6-12, and a youth leadership program to develop skills and commitment in program veterans, was funded by the Harbus Foundation in 1998 as well.

A newly chartered school in Allston-Brighton, called the Media and Technology Charter High School will receive $10,000 to fund a pre-enrollment skill-building program to prepare students who need help with literacy and communication skills prior to the beginning of the school year. The program will do this through traditional reading and writing instruction, as well as engaging media projects involving TV, radio, multimedia and photography.

A $10,000 seed grant will be awarded to an emerging program entitled the Post-Prison Re-Entry Project, designed to prevent felony recidivism by building the skills of ex-felons in Dorchester. In partnership with a job-training program called STRIVE, and with the support of the Crime and Justice Foundation, the program will be launched in 1999.

Taft Middle School in Brighton will receive a $6,000 grant to develop a school journal for students of all grades to help develop creative writing and thinking skills. The journal will contain book reviews, poetry, creative stories, and reporting on current event by and for the schoolÌs students.

A second $10,000 grant will be provided to Women Express, Inc., and organization committed to encouraging positive development for teenage girls. The grant will fund the internet publication of the organizationÌs magazine for and about young women, Teen Voices. The Harbus Foundation grant last year helped the organization launch the on-line magazine, and our funds this year will be used to expand the program to involve more teenage girls after school and to expand readership across the globe.