2025 Grant Recipients
Our grants committee follows a three-year cycle of supporting partner agencies and purpose. This year’s grants support Child Protection, Advocacy & Education. Many thanks to the Grants Commission members who served this year: Robert Ciesick, Jamie Halcom, Lisa Ingram, Linda Leatherbury, Judy Meade, Paul Perry, Barbara Roberts, Hewit Hawn Rome, Bill Tindall, Tim Truesdell, Carolyn Venable.
They thoroughly evaluated grant applications; visited in teams each of the organizations who applied; and formulated a thoughtful and enthusiastic recommendation to the Vestry for approval of the following grants.
Gratefully,
Charles Chesebrough, Chair
2025 Recipients
BETTER TOGETHER
Better Together helps at-risk children avoid neglect and abuse at home by placing them with temporary foster families. Better Together serves 500 Collier County children annually in this way. Most of these children arrive at their foster homes with very few personal belongings. With Trinity’s grant, Better Together volunteers will provide every newly-placed child with a “Hope Pack”: an age-appropriate backpack containing immediate necessities such as clothing and personal hygiene products. Each Hope Pack costs $100. Our grant will provide 100 foster children with their very own Hope Pack.
Request; $10,000
BOOKS FOR COLLIER KIDS
Books for Collier Kids (BCK) provides 140,000 new books annually to Collier kids, pre-k, through second grade. BCK has found that children who become frequent readers by the age of 10 will achieve significantly higher test results during their subsequent student years. For this Trinity grant, Books for Collier Kids will gift 5,000 new books to children at Fun Time Early Childhood Academy and Parkside Elementary. Approximately 460 children and their teachers will be involved. The books are brand new, beautifully illustrated and cost us a fraction of their retail price. A new book brings immense joy to each child and fosters a real desire to learn to read.
Request: $10,500
CHAMPIONS FOR LEARNING
Champions for Learning creates life changing educational experiences for 9th through 12th grade students from very low income families in Collier County. With Trinity’s grant 50 deserving students will be provided with opportunities to achieve college acceptance with accompanying financial help. Our grant will purchase seven new computers and associated up-to-date software that Champions’ mentors can use to help these students improve their college applications, search for school data, take virtual tours, and explore pathways to obtain financial assistance.
Request: $10,000
CHILDREN’S ADVOCACY CENTER OF COLLIER COUNTY
Children’s Advocacy Center assists 550 children in Collier County per year. Each child coming to Children’s Advocacy has been sexually abused, severely physically abused, or has witnessed a violent crime. The average victim is a 7-year-old girl, sexually abused by someone she knows and trusts. To improve the protection of these young children the Advocacy Center needs seven new computers with software compatible with the County Sheriff’s Office and the Naples Police Department. This new technology will enable law enforcement to more successfully prosecute alleged abusers. It will also provide abuse victims with the best and most effective support they need for their recovery.
Request: $10,000
FOSTERING SUCCESS (Formerly FRIENDS OF FOSTER CHILDREN)
Fostering Success provides educational opportunities for older foster children the state no longer supports. Without help less than 50% of these abandoned children will graduate from high school. With help from the teachers and staff at Fostering Success, every one of these kids high school. With help from the teachers and staff at Fostering Success, every one of these kids personalized mentoring and tutoring by retired professional teachers and 125 volunteers. Trinity’s grant will help 24 foster children ages 13-17 to receive 285 hours of after-school mentoring and tutoring in 2025.
Request: $11,300
FUN TIME ACADEMY EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT
Fun Time Academy prepares very young children, 2-4 years old, to be ‘ready to read and ready to learn’ by the time they enter kindergarten. These children come from low-income working families with diverse socio-economic needs. Fun Time schools have a 90% kindergarten readiness rate compared to 49% in the state of Florida. Fun Time needs to invest in a digital cloud network to extend their success to more children. Three years ago, they served 96 children at one location. Today they serve 387 children in four locations. Trinity’s grant will allow Fun Time to continue their high quality of education readiness and teacher preparedness.
Request: $10,000
GRACE PLACE FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
Grace Place is an after public school program dedicated to educating the most at-risk children and parents. It targets only families within a 4 mile radius of the school. At present, fewer than half of the elementary students in this area are proficient in English compared to 61% across Collier County. To close this language gap Trinity will provide funding for a new after-school literacy program to be attended by 90 kindergarten, first and second grade students. The grant will provide money for new books in English and a comprehensive library of new ready-to-teach lessons for the after-school classes.
Request: $10,000
LACES OF LOVE
Laces of Love provides new shoes to disadvantaged children in Collier County. Since incorporation in 2005, Laces of Love has provided over 200,000 poor kids with new shoes. Distribution is tightly controlled and only the most deserving cases chosen. The public school system uses teachers, guidance counselors, school nurses, and even school principals to identify candidates for new shoes. Laces of Love shoes are often the first pair of new shoes a child has ever owned. The grant request for $10,000 will purchase 250 pairs of sneakers, enough to supply all of the most vulnerable children in two Title 1 schools located in the poorest sections of our community.
Request: $10,000
LITERARY VOLUNTEERS OF COLLIER COUNTY
Literary Volunteers of Collier County provides non-English speaking families with effective courses to improve their English reading skills. Trinity’s grant will support 400 families next year who are enrolled in the Children and Parents Reading Together (CPRT) program. Our funds will buy 4,000 English language books to be read and then taken home by each family for them to keep.
Request: $10,000
NEW HORIZONS
New Horizons offers faith-based, after-school reading and science programs to underprivileged, mostly Hispanic, children in Collier County. New Horizons is distinguished by the way its teachers actively engage and involve their students. With our grant New Horizons will purchase 12 virtual reality head sets, software and training lessons that will offer 27 students per day the kind of hands on learning they need for a deeper understanding of STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering, and math.
Request $10,000
PACE CENTER FOR GIRLS
Pace Center Immokalee serves 100 low-income girls who have a history of delinquent behavior and victimization. The girls live in their own homes and attend Pace five days a week, year-round. Pace not only prevents school dropouts and community violence it also provides courses encouraging hope, enlightenment and resilience. The Trinity grant will fund a new program called Empower Her. Success with Empower Her and similar courses will prepare the girls for high school graduation, either directly from Pace or the local public school.
Request: $10,000
PATHWAYS EARLY EDUCATION CENTER OF IMMOKALEE
Pathways Early Education Center provides 11 hours per day of skilled supervision and education to fieldworkers’ children in Immokalee. The Center looks after 125 children aged four weeks to five-years-old and has a waiting list of 500. Trinity’s grant will pay for a new 5-ton 10K HVAC Unit to help make the care and education of these young students and their teachers much more comfortable and productive.
Request: $12,000
REDLANDS CHRISTIAN MIGRANT ASSOCIATION (RCMA) CHARTER SCHOOL, IMMOKALE
RCMA operates a bilingual public charter school located in Immokalee which serves 680 children in kindergarten through 8th grade. 40% of these children are from migrant workers families who speak little English and are absent from Immokalee for four months of the year. The subsequent slide in English vocabulary and reading skills from July-to-October is steep and requires special after-school classes for the children to quickly catch-up. Trinity’s grant will fund after-school, English classes from January to June for 283 K-8 students, using a research-based, dual-language approach in Spanish and English. This grant will provide up to 10.5 hours of reading instruction, tutoring, clubs, and enrichment activities each week to engage students.
Request:$11,500
THE SALVATION ARMY
The Salvation Army offers a variety of social services to vulnerable families in Collier County. Trinity’s grant will support an extended hours youth program which will engage 60 teenagers in learning the theory and practice of music. This after-school program will nurture creativity, discipline and self-expression through various musical instruments and result in group performances and a concert recital in May 2025. Conducted over 40-weeks this afterschool activity will cost $9,360 including hot meals.
Request: $9,360