The Targeted Community Investment Grant Program awards microgrants to residents and grassroots organizations that offer needed prevention services and support in communities impacted by gun violence.
In this fourth round of funding awards, 41 community groups received a combined total of nearly $900,000 in funding.
A special emphasis was placed on funding for programs that can meet the mentorship, educational, employment, and trauma-informed care needs of young men between the ages of 16 to 34 in areas most vulnerable to high levels of violence.
The grant application process, which opened June 1, 2021, and closed July 23, 2021, brought in more than 280 applications, from which 41 awardees were chosen. The individual grants, ranging from $10,000 to $45,000, will support programs in neighborhoods impacted by violent crime to help prevent or reduce shootings among youth and young adults living in these communities.
These awards have been a key initiative of The Philadelphia Roadmap to Safer Communities, and advance the updated Roadmap’s goals of creating:
- Connected and thriving youth, young adults, and families.
- Strong community engagement and partnerships.
- Coordinated City services and planning.
- Safe and healthier neighborhoods.
Those who applied were asked to give a specific description of the program or activity to be funded, along with an explanation of how it will help prevent or reduce gun violence in the community, a budget that clearly shows how the funds will be used, and how success will be measured.
The following grantee biographies are organized by how their services benefit their communities.
*Note: Many of these organizations overlap with multiple categories based on their services and supports.
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Addressing Health and Wellness |
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| Recipient Name | Organization Affiliation | Initiative Title | Initiative Description | Award Amount |
| Angenique Howard | Unique Dreams, Inc | Push Through the Wire | The “Push Through The Wire” program connects individuals between the ages of 12-65 to programs and services within their community through a referral review process. The mission is to capture individuals before they enter the justice system and equip them with tools and opportunities that will allow them the most successful path in the right direction. | $40,000 |
| Sharell Wilson | The Repurpose Project | The Repurpose Project | The Objective of the Repurpose Project is to reduce violence in City’s West Philadelphia community by empowering and educating local West Philadelphians ages 18 thru 24 through the use of arts, psychotherapeutic instruction, and case management support. | $13,000 |
| Gina Maddred | Positive Choices Program | Positive Choices Program | The Positive Choices program is designed to equip our youth and young adults in the City of Philadelphia with the proper life skills and conflict resolution. | $18,000 |
| Lavonne Monique O’Neal | Reclaim Your Mind | Reclaim Your Mind | This program decreases mental trauma due to violence gun (opioid, physical, sexual, etc..) in the community and increases self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-image by exploring identity, based around the five factors in the Indivisible Self-model of wellness (i.e., creative self, coping self, physical self, social self, and essential self) | $18,000 |
| Joseph Purnell | Neighborhood United Against Drugs | 2021 NUAD Barber Shop Violence Prevention Risk Reduction Intervention | This project targets young men at risk of gun violence by implementing a group-level intervention that promotes a sense of community and conflict resolution hosted in local barbershops. | $40,000 |
| Ebony Gardner | Youth Recovery Mode | Youth Recovery Mode- Winter Camp | The mission of Youth Recovery Mode (YRM) is to foster the growth, development, and leadership capabilities of underprivileged and marginalized adolescents (ages 11 to 17) who are exposed to community and demographic-specific violence. | $17,500 |
| Khalif Mujahid-Ali | Healing Circles | Beloved Care Project | The Beloved Care Project activates and empowers youth in West and Southwest Philadelphia to discuss trauma, anger, grief, and loss in safe communal spaces; raise awareness in our streets about gun violence; and get involved in their communities through projects like rallies and street cleanups. | $15,000 |
| Jacqui Johnson | Changing the Narrative | Changing the Narrative | Changing the Narrative is designed to reduce gun violence through self-reflection, self-awareness, and space to heal from past traumas that drive negative reactions to the environment such as gun violence and all violent/aggressive behaviors. | $35,000 |
| John Solomon | Stand on Business | Stand on Business | The Stand on Business program provides a space as a resource hub, connecting to city resources. We teach conflict resolution, fatherhood, empowerment, financial literacy, and have slots for one on one convos that men can be open and transparent about traumatic experiences that they have yet to release. | $15,000 |
| Jon McKay | Life Outside The Streets (LOTS) | Restore Philly | LOTS is a non-profit organization with a mission to heal communities by giving them the tools needed to treat their trauma through arts, education, and information. Our organization is proactively creating ambassadors in our educational workshops to equip mentors with the tools needed to properly meditate crises. | $15,000 |
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Job Training and Skill Building |
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| Recipient Name | Organization Affiliation | Initiative Title | Initiative Description | Award Amount |
| Oshunbumi Fernandez-West | ODUNDE | ODUNDE365 “About Your Business Program” | This program will teach youth and young adults the fundamentals to create, operate, and maintain their own hair products business. | $30,000 |
| Michael Thinner | ATS Against Violence | ATS Against Violence | This program works with at-risk young adults and provides them with job training and professional development. | $17,000 |
| Julia Hillengas | PowerCorps PHL | T.R.U.S.T.: The Road to an Ultimate Successful Transition | PowerCorpsPHL’s T.R.U.S.T initiative will provide Philadelphia’s young adult returning citizens with a structured on-ramp to permanent, career-track employment, along with social-emotional and mentoring supports to guide their return to local communities and stem recidivism. | $45,000 |
| Robert Rosa | New leash on Life | Young Adult Reentry Program | In collaboration with our program partners at the D.A.’s Office and Defender’s Association, we identify and work with the young men and women who are most likely to be the perpetrators or victims of future gun violence and help them to break the cycle through training, education, and employment. | $10,000 |
| Terrance Jenkins | Uplift Program | The Uplift Program | The Uplift Program is specifically designed to increase the future opportunities of its participants providing a direct alternative to engaging and responding to violence in a negative way. | $17,000 |
| Matthew Kerr | Beyond the Bars | Interrupting the School to Prison Pipeline at Every Phase of the Pipeline | This project uses music to offer safe spaces for youth impacted by gun violence. It supports self-expression through songwriting, composition, and recording. | $15,000 |
| Rickey Duncan | NOMO Inc. | New Options More Opportunity | This program promotes comprehensive services for young people at risk of violence. This includes career readiness training, counseling, academic, and other supports. | $28,500 |
| Anton Moore | Unity in the Community | Unity in the Community Carpentry Program | This project teaches at-risk youth in my community a trade and provides them with a mentor. 40 workshops will be held that will teach the young men how to paint, lay floors, hang drywall, mount TVs, and much more during our workshops. | $18,000 |
| Alex Peay | One’s Up | One’s Up Community Fellowship | Through the project-based learning program, youth receive job training by working alongside communities to address social justice issues and increase access to resources for the people in their neighborhoods. | $30,000 |
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Promoting Education and Mentorship |
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| Recipient Name | Organization Affiliation | Initiative Title | Initiative Description | Award Amount |
| Anthony Johnson | Dreamfield Academy | Dreamfield Fencing for Life | The mission of Dream Field Academy is to foster an effective academic and social program by acting as the focal point for the community through outreach programs that counsel and mentor youth and adolescents to become productive citizens. | $12,000 |
| Monifa Young | Uptown Entertainment Development Corporation | Uptown Youth Got Talent | The “Uptown Youth Got Talent” (UYGT) youth S.T.E.A.M. program offers training and cultural enrichment to underserved youth using S.T.E.A.M. 21st century education that provides marketable and transferable skills to youth. A culminating project (exhibition) will demonstrate mastery of skills developed over the course of the participation weeks. | $17,000 |
| Carl Day | Culture Changing Christians | Castoffs to Conquerors | This comprehensive program supports the development of male youth at a high risk of violence through mentorship, offering life skills and spiritual development, and opportunities for community service. | $15,000 |
| Clyde Russell | Making Men, Inc. | High Impact Partnerships | This project will connect participants to educational, mentoring, and professional development opportunities through trainings. It will promote conflict resolution strategies. | $15,000 |
| Anne Hoffman | Philly Audio Diaries | Philly Audio Diaries | Philly Audio Diaries will produce a special season of our podcast “Off Mic” led by students and their instructors. This season will feature stories from young people who have been affected by the criminal justice system along with listening events. Each episode will concern one student’s story and in-depth reporting about a specific issue or angle connected to their story. | $13,000 |
| Kathy Jacoby | Horizons Greater Philadelphia | Horizons Greater Philadelphia School Year Program | The mission of Horizons Greater Philadelphia (HGP) is to change the life trajectory of students from economically disadvantaged communities by providing opportunities for them to find joy in learning, gain academic and social skills, and realize their full potential. | $18,000 |
| Chantae Brabham | Philly Youth Making Positive Choices | Philly Youth Making Positive Choices | The purpose of this project is to educate young people on how to lead violence-free lives. We will focus on building protective factors within students to aid in positive social development while reducing risk factors that may lead to problem behaviors. | $35,000 |
| Gillian Bazelon | Netter Center | Bridges 2 Wealth | Bridges 2 Wealth (B2W) provides free financial empowerment and entrepreneurship education and opportunity to underserved communities (students, families, and parents) throughout underserved Philadelphia communities and will expand its programming to the Andrew Hamilton School in West Philadelphia, delivering free classes and wealth-building vehicles for students, families, and community members starting in Fall, 2021. | $12,000 |
| Francesca Lobasso | Big Picture Philadelphia | Real World Learning at Vaux HS and el Centro de Estudiantes | Big Picture Philadelphia (BPP) runs holistic educational programming at two North Philadelphia schools in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP): Vaux Big Picture High School (BPHS), a neighborhood school in Sharswood, and el Centro de Estudiantes, an accelerated high school program for Opportunity Youth (youth ages 16-21 who are over-aged, under-credited, and unemployed) in Frankford. | $40,000 |
| Amber Allen | The Block Gives Back | Youth Internship Program | The mission of The Block Gives Back Youth Internship Program (YIP) is to connect with young adults aged 12-24 in Philadelphia through mentorship while inspiring the participants to be the change they wish to see in the community. | $15,000 |
| Taj Murdock | Men of Courage | Men of Courage | The mission is to empower our communities by promoting the academic, mental, social, emotional, financial, and career development of the next generation of young male leaders | $40,000 |
| Solomon Jones | ManUpPHL | ManUpPHL | ManUpPHL’s mission is to step into the lives of the men (18 – 35) who are statistically most likely to be victims or perpetrators of gun violence in our city and to provide them with the mentoring, accountability, resources, and consistency they require to change their lives and make our communities better. | $10,000 |
| Eugene Thomas | PowerCircle | PowerCircle Mentors | Power Circle intends to lower gun violence and positively impact youth in Philadelphia by focusing on three subject areas: mentorship, job placement and readiness, and community outreach. | $15,000 |
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Sustaining Safe Neighborhoods |
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| Recipient Name | Organization Affiliation | Initiative Title | Initiative Description | Award Amount |
| Ronald Ribeiro | YMCA | Gun Violence Prevention Program | The YMCA Gun Violence Prevention Program’s purpose is to provide resources to teenagers and young adults who are most likely to be victims and/or perpetrators of gun violence. | $25,000 |
| Jim Hardy | Philadelphia Community Empowerment Through Soccer | Youth Soccer, Leadership Development, Civic Engagement and Social Work | This program supports youth and young adults who serve as teen soccer coaches and supervisors while learning skills related to employment, leadership, and conflict resolution. Participants are provided case management services. This program promotes community engagement through violence prevention events. | $40,000 |
| Hyungtae Kim | The Restorative Community Project | The Restorative Community Project | The Restorative Community Project aims to produce positive outcomes and outputs for our youth participants in all the major risk factor areas (Individual, Family, School, Neighborhood & Community) of youth delinquency through a restorative, trauma-informed, and Black feminist program design. | $15,000 |
| Edwin Desamour | Guns Down, Hands Up | Guns Down, Hands Up | The Guns Down, Gloves Up program is designed to provide 3 nights per week where young men from the community can participate in activities that will condition their minds, their bodies, and their social perceptions. Two of the three nights will be dedicated to a boxing program, the remaining night will be a workshop. | $20,000 |
| Elizabeth Clinton | SafeHub Philadelphia | SafeHub Philadelphia | The SafeHub mission is to create safe spaces that combine the power of sport and education to empower youth and change lives through the Safe-Hub youth and community development model. | $17,000 |
| Aleida Garcia | Angel Picnic | Angel Picnic | The Angel Picnic -Workshop and Resource Fair Event is a gathering founded by survivors of gun violence with the intention of building community, encourage community members to express their concerns, mitigate and reduce trauma, provide resources to the community, invite children, youth, and adults to participate in peaceful dialogue and prosocial activities while in a safe space. | $15,000 |
| Asinia Abdul-Wakeel | SAPHE Haven | Strengthening Adolescents by Promoting Health Education Haven | SAPHE Haven aims to enhance resiliency, reduce impulsivity, increase prosocial behaviors, encourage healthy relationships, and promote the overall health and well-being of young people and their communities by providing a safe and inclusive space to engage at-risk youth through workshops, providing mentoring, and offering other activities designed to increase awareness. | $15,000 |
| Kayla Johnson | Travel Like a Girl/Boy Genius | Travel Like a Girl/Boy Genius | Travel Like a Girl/Boy Genius offers the youth in Philadelphia the opportunity to learn through travel. In this program, learning entails understanding various cultures, communities, and inequities around the world through workshops, training, and research projects | $17,000 |
| Charles Reeves, Jr. | Resident Action Committee | Resident Action Committee | The purpose and mission of this project is to create alternative and preventative measures to combat gun violence through activities including daily basketball clinics, soccer, volleyball and strength, and conditioning sessions. These activities are supplemented with job skills trainings, financial literacy classes, and conflict resolution workshops. | $12,000 |
