2009 Grant Award Ceremony & Donor Appreciation Night

We are so pleased to share with all of you the "2009 Grant Award Ceremony & Donor Appreciation Night" was quite a gathering not just because the room was full but because there was a consensus that the reaching out to the community as how as we can is in the right direction to bring the community together. The new 10 grantee partners and participated donors also had a meaningful time together to share their perspectives.
Commissioner Fatima Shama from the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs delivered wonderful encouragement speech and Ms. Eun-Ju Ryu, one of our donors, illustrated dynamic presentation about the BFUSA’s 2009 briefing and President S.J. Jung from MinKwon Center for Community Action shared his thank you message on behalf of all the grantee partners.

As adopting one grant-making cycle, the foundation selected 10 new grantee organizations to distribute $108,000, which have strived to meet the imminent community challenges with effective, efficient and innovative approches.

After thorough review, the Board of Direcfors of the Foundation has gladly accepted the final recommendation from the Grant Advisory Panel consisting of 7 community welfare and grant making experts. As adopting one grant-making cycle, the foundation selected 10 new grantee organizations to distribute $108,000, which have strived to meet the imminent community challenges with effective, efficient and innovative approches. In the past three years since its inception as a community foundation in 2006,the Foundation has distributed $496,426 to 39 social service and educational institutes.

Community Senior Center of Flushing (CSCF), Program : Senior Program $10,000
CSCF’s Senior Program consists of daily free lunch program, education programs and other leisure activity . Currently, CSCF serves 80-120 seniors for lunch program and 20 for education programs(computer and writing class) and 30 for leisure activity (mostly, line dance class). The grant is expected to sustain the program while individual member donations, which take 40% of revenue, have declined due to economic recession.

Hamilton Madison House, Program: Korean Caregiver's Program $10,000
Korean Caregiver’s Program will allow Korean seniors to age in place within Korean community. The program will provide supportive counseling, case assistance, caregiver training and support groups, benefits and entitlements assistance, homecare, informational and referral assistance and supplemental services.

Jabiwon Social Services Center, Inc. ,Operation Fund $5,000
With the mission to enhance life quality of seniors, Jabiwon provides assistance services for seniors who do not speak English to receive government benefits/ assistance such as SSA/SSI Benefit, medicaid & medicare benefits, public assistance for low income people, food stamps, SCRIE,and etc. 2008 year alone, the center has dealt 5,412 cases and served 6,151 visitors.

YKASEC(Young Korean American Service and Education Center),
Program: Immigrant Right Clinic, $15,000
YKASEC’s Immigrant Right Clinic aims providing recent immigrants a comprehensive legal counseling/assistance service. For that, YKASEC has combined tax assistance clinic and immigrant workers right clinic and educational portion under the Immigrant Right Clinic. The Foundation has supported tax assistance clinic (2007 Second Half for $6,000) and immigrant worker’s clinic (2008 Second Half for $10,000). The grant will help the YKASEC to serve 1,165 people across all of immigration law, housing law, labor law, income tax assistance, government benefits, and other legal issues.

Korean American Family Service Center ( KAFSC ),
Program: Women's Domestic Violence Program , $15,000
The grant will sustain women's domestic violence program and continue outreach efforts. The program has served 2,500 individuals with culturally sensitive, linguistically appropriate free services annually. The Foundation supported the same program once for 2008 Early-Half Grant Making ($4,000)

The Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF),
Project Document Achievement to Transform Accountability (Project DATA) $15,000
Project DATA documents the academic success and opportunity gaps within the diverse Asian Pacific American student population of NYC. Once the project completed, the data will be the baseline for Asian American agencies to assess the challenges of Asian youth across the city and to prescribe future policy changes. Project DATA was supported through 2008 Second-Half Grant Making ($10,000). With the support from the Foundation, CACF successfully collected data sets last year and with the new grant injected, it will develop and maintains data sets, conducting quantitative analysis while CACF collaborates on data collection, qualitative analysis, and dissemination.

Day One,
Project: Lowering Youth Violence in Immigrant Communities Project $10,000
Day One is a champion organization dedicated to raise awareness of domestic violence among teenagers, provide educational workshops to middle and high school students , and offer legal assistance to young victims. The grant will be used in sustaining and strengthening Day One’s operation in Queens area where Korean-American teenagers are concentrated.

Korean-American Special Education Network (KASPED)
Project: Exploring Service after School Age, $5,000
KASPED has a mission to inform, education, and empower Korean-American families of children with special needs in the metro New York area by providing resources and services to the families. Exploring Service After School Age program will combine and translate the government benefits/ assistance services available for mentally challenged youth in transition from K-12 to the beyond. KASPED will make the translated information in Korean booklet and distribute it at least to 200 parents and 200 Korean-American CBOs. In tandem, it will host parents workshop to inform about public service available for mentally challenged youth after K-12.

Asian Women’s Christian Association New Jersey Korean Family Service Center , Project: Grace Hotline $13,000
The AWCA New Jersey Korean Family Service center has instated Grace Hotline program to provide prompt service to Korean in mental health crisis. With preexisting counseling program of the center, the Grace Hotline service will assist callers going through a critical mental condition as referring the cases to professionals and related agencies.

Rainbow Center, Project: Shelter Program $10,000
The grant will empower the clients with infants/single-moms in crisis to gain financial and emotional independence by providing safe shelters, transitional housing, crisis support, case management, public and legal assistance, and advocacy. Part of the grant will hire a shelter manager.