Zonta Awards $7,854 in Community Grants

 Zonta Club of the Santa Clarita Valley awarded nearly $8,000 in community grants at its recent annual awards evening. The community grants were part of nearly $21,000 in scholarship and grants presented at the local club’s recent annual awards evening.
Zonta’s Community Grants Committee awarded a total of $7854 in grants to four community organizations which support Zonta’s mission of improving the lives of women and girls. The final winners were chosen from a number of eligible applications received by the local club.
The Samuel Dixon Family Health Centers, Inc., will use its grant to support its program of support for low income women, to provide mental health counseling in order the improve their overall health and well-being. “It is well known that mental health is a key component to a person’s overall health and well-being, and that a person’s mental health is affected by poverty, unemployment, heavy alcohol and tobacco consumption and physical inactivity,” according to the center’s grant application. It noted that 96 percent of all Samuel Dixon patients qualify as low income, and more than half of the clinic’s uninsured patients were females.
Single Mothers Outreach also is a Community Grant recipient this year. The non-profit plans to use Zonta’s grant funds to support a Smart Money Smart Kids program, a six-week video series based on the New York Times best-selling book, “Smart Money Smart Kids.” The video helps parents teach their children how to manage money effectively, starting with the basics like working, spending, savings and giving. The program also covers more challenging issues such as avoiding debt, paying cash for college, and battling discontentment.
“Teaching disadvantaged kids while they are tweens and teens allows the children of single mothers to impact their relationship with money while they are young enough to really change their family’s cycle,” promises the organization’s grant application. “In 2016, Smart Money Smart Kids aims to address poverty at its core to change the trajectory of highly disadvantaged single mothers and their daughters in Santa Clarita.”
This year’s third Zonta Community Grant recipient is the American Association of University Women, Santa Clarita Valley Branch. The local branch hopes to send 18 local girls to its Tech Trek camp this year, and Zonta’s funding would allow scholarships to e awarded to two of those girls. The Tech Trek program takes entering eighth grade girls into a college setting, where they take part in hands-on activities that promote an interest in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. Several of the local campers were selected because they participate in Zonta’s girls robotics program at the local Boys & Girls Club.
Carousel Ranch also received a Community Grant from Zonta this year, which will be used to offer two full scholarships and one half scholarship to young women with special needs who participate in Carousel Ranch’s Ready to Work job readiness and training program for young adults, aged 18 to 26. Young women in the program will understand basic workplace expectations and interactions, will gain confidence and soft skills in a “sheltered” workplace, and will gain hands-on work experience in a supervised and supportive environment.
All four organizations will be asked to report back to Zonta next spring on the effectiveness of their grant-supported programs.