Bigelow Foundation Finances Word Works!, Human Service Campaigns

The F. R. Bigelow Foundation, St. Paul, provided funding for the Words Work! early childhood literacy initiative as part of its April 2004 grant awards. The foundation also supported the capital campaigns for several local human service organizations.

The Bigelow Foundation awarded a $225,000 grant to The Saint Paul Foundation to help finance the operating budget of Words Work!, an early childhood literacy initiative begun by Bigelow in 1999. The initiative has demonstrated tremendous success in the second-year results of a five-year study of the program's graduates in the St. Paul Public Schools. Now a special project of The Saint Paul Foundation, Words Work! currently serves 442 children in 13 classrooms.

Bigelow's grant will support the Words Work! program's sixth year of operation, during which Words Work! will add seven new classrooms at three sites. The family component of the program will focus on an approach that allows parents to join children at the centers for hands-on learning in literacy and math and encourages families to take materials home to enhance in-home learning.

The foundation's recent grants also including funding support for the capital campaigns of several local human services nonprofits, including the following:

• Chicanos/Latinos Unidos en Servicios, Inc. received $200,000 to help fund the construction of CLUES' new 55,000-square-foot facility at 801 East Seventh Street. Founded in 1981 to provide culturally appropriate social services for St. Paul's Latino community, CLUES assists more than 20,000 clients annually with employment, elder wellness, community education and chemical health services. The organization's new building will house the its administration and programs and provide rental space for a medical clinic and a bank, which could greatly improve the social and physical infrastructure of the East Side of St. Paul.
     
• Indianhead Council, Boy Scouts of America, Inc. received $300,000 for its Shaping Tomorrow's Leaders Capital Campaign. Gounded in 1910, Indianhead Council, Boy Scouts of America serves boys and girls aged six to 21 in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The F. R. Bigelow Foundation's grant will help fund a $10 million campaign to make capital investments in camps and outdoor education facilities, establish a facilities maintenance endowment, and create a Program Innovation Fund that will allow the organization to respond quickly to the changing needs of young people in the community, particularly youth with special needs and those from inner city neighborhoods.
     
• Young Women's Christian Association of St. Paul received $150,000 to realize the goals of its capital campaign, which include the purchase of a building adjacent to its current location and the renovation of its current facilities to make them more suitable for child care programming and administrative staff. For nearly a century, the YWCA of St. Paul has advocated for social change and helped individuals and families develop physical and emotional well-being. In 2002, the YWCA provided 12 programs and served more than 6,800 participants from its location in the Selby-Dale neighborhood.

In total, the board of trustees of the F. R. Bigelow Foundation approved 31 grants totaling $1,944,111 at its April 2004 meeting. For a complete list of the grants, visit the foundation's Web site (select "News").

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