We are proud to announce the second round of Kensington Community Resilience Fund grants. The Kensington Community Resilience Fund was a public-private-community partnership between the Kensington community, regional funders, Bread & Roses Community Fund, and the city of Philadelphia. The fund supported organizations in the Kensington, Harrowgate, and Fairhill neighborhoods that are working to build a community in which all residents can thrive.

On March 3, the Community Advisory Committee for the fund announced that $10,000 grants were awarded to twenty grantees:

Beyond The Bars is a student-driven music and career skills program dedicated to interrupting cycles of violence and incarceration while helping students recognize their immense potential. This grant will help Beyond the Bars start weekly programming, skills development, and communal shows for youth and young adults in the Kensington area.

By Faith, Health and Healing focuses on rebuilding community and establishing a foundation for trauma informed care in Kensington. Participants take part in facilitated peer support groups, arts-based healing workshops, and specialized trainings and field trips. The grant will help them provide support programs in processing grief, loss, and trauma.

Centro Nueva Creación has served the community of Fairhill since 1993. Initially their programming focused on providing a safe space for neighborhood youth after school, but has expanded to include arts and culture, homework help, literacy, natural sciences, sports, and more. This grant will help provide educational opportunities and experiences, both in and out of school, to Fairhill’s young people.

Ed Snider Hockey Foundation utilizes ice hockey to help students succeed in the game of life. Snider Hockey programs support the overall development of students from crayons to college, and onto their careers. This grant will go towards their hockey program which immerses students in a wide array of educational, life skills, scholarship, and career development programming.

Fab Youth Philly supports organizations and individuals that work with children and youth, focusing on improving program quality, connecting youth workers to quality professional development opportunities. This grant will go towards Fab Youth Philly quality youth development, afterschool programming, and workforce development opportunities for residents at the McPherson Square Free Library.

Firm Hope Baptist Church’s vision is to meet the spiritual and social needs of their community. They have a community meal service as well as outdoor and indoor space for various neighborhood meetings. This grant will go towards their programming, including hosting a weekly gathering of teens and young adults to address community violence and build social skills.

The Greater Philadelphia Diaper Bank provides over two million diapers, including adult diapers, and period products to partner agencies. This grant will go towards their mission of making the community aware that diapers and period products are basic human needs and that meeting these needs helps individuals and families thrive.

Historic Fair Hill’s goals are to serve as a responsive partner in the revitalization of Fairhill through youth development and education programs, urban farming and fresh food initiatives, and community-building and wellness projects. This grant supports work in the Julia de Burgos Elementary School community.

The Kensington Community Meals group is an anti-hunger collaborative project to organize meal providers. Their activities focus on empowerment, education, training, resource mobilization, and relationship building. This grant will help them purchase and install five information boards at Heitzman, McPherson Square Park, Harrowgate Park, The Butterfly Garden, and McVeigh.

Kensington Voice publishes news stories, resource guides, and personal essays for and by Kensington, Harrowgate, and Fairhill residents in English and Spanish. This grant will help them launch a Digital Media Mac Lab for community members in the spring of 2022.

Klean Kensington’s mission is to connect neighbors, young and old, in renewing their community. They do this through trash cleanup, beautification efforts, block events, kids programming, and by hiring youth/young adults. This grant will help them pay local youth, install more permanent trash-alleviation mechanisms, and build general capacity.

Mad Beatz Philly trains new drummers, ages 13 and older, to perform in the Mad Beatz Philly drumline. The program creates a bridge between the social, emotional, and rhythmic intelligence of Black and Latinx learners within a college preparation framework. This grant will go towards providing weekly programming and launching a second cohort of their workforce development program.

Mother of Mercy House’s  mission is to help everyone experience unconditional and empowering love. This grant will go towards their food bank, nursing care, after school programs, parenting programs, summer day camps, and space for the Philadelphia ID program.

Rebel Arts Movement Center empowers youth & adults through instruction in acrobatics, tumbling, and aerial arts. This grant will go towards developing a performing arts pipeline program that will allow students to engage in expressive arts without the existing financial barriers.

Somerset Neighbors for Better Living is a registered community organization that works as part of the neighborhood to make Somerset a better place to live, work, and play.  This grant will go towards installing trash cans and solar lights on ten target blocks that will be cared for by youth leaders identified through partnership with local high schools.

Stay True is a youth-centered, community building nonprofit, dedicated to fostering brave and safe spaces to unapologetically demand equity in Philadelphia. This grant will help Stay True support young folx in the Kensington neighborhood through its summer programming.

Visitation School has long prided itself on providing for Kensington families both in and outside of the classroom. This grant will go towards the construction of a natural barrier along their existing fence line at Kensington Avenue and Lehigh Avenue, to create a sheltered space with a sustainable raised bed and pallet garden to provide hands-on learning.

We Love Philly’s  mission is to empower students with positive community experiences and essential professional skills through mindfulness, volunteerism, and entrepreneurship. This grant will go towards making their property at 120 Wishart Street a site for a state certified pre-apprenticeship program in collaboration with One Bright Ray Community High School, Jevs Human Services, and Orleans Technical Institute.

Yoga 4 Philly believes that yoga, meditation, and other mindfulness tools should be accessible to everyone. The grant will help Yoga 4 Philly offer free yoga to the students, school administrators, and community members at Elkin Elementary School, which has a large portion of students with behavioral issues.

Zerbe Artz provides a space for the community to engage in conversations about social issues through art. This grant will go towards their current work of beautifying a blighted space at the McVeigh Rec center where residents have been working diligently to create a safe, beautiful, and clean space for their children.

We are proud to announce the first round of Kensington Community Resilience Fund grants. The Kensington Community Resilience Fund is a public-private-community partnership between the Kensington community, regional funders, Bread & Roses Community Fund, and the city of Philadelphia. The fund supports organizations in the Kensington, Harrowgate, and Fairhill neighborhoods that are working to build a community in which all residents can thrive.

On July 14, the Community Advisory Committee for the fund announced that $10,000 grants were awarded to twenty grantees:

Community Center at Visitation provides a safe place to connect residents to resources and a central location for recreation, educational programs, and health services. A grant from this fund will support one year of hosting family-friendly monthly dinners and resource fairs. 

Good Host Plants is a native plant nursery promoting biodiversity in the region by growing open-pollinated, local-ecotype plants. A grant from this fund will help them convert five to ten empty lots into community pollinator gardens. 

Harrowgate Civic Association strives to help the Harrowgate community become a safe and beautiful community. This grant will go toward their plan to help residents with neighborhood cleaning by distributing trash cans and other cleaning supplies. 

Hart Lane Neighborhood Farm is a  group of neighbors and stakeholders dedicated to creating and tending to a healing, safe urban farm in the Kensington community. This grant will help them replace broken sidewalks in their garden and reconnect the space safely to the neighborhood with an ADA- compliant access point. 

Kensington Soccer Club provides high-quality soccer and youth development programming for everyone, regardless of ability to pay. This grant will support their core programming, which includes connecting families to legal assistance, health care, college financial aid, and leadership development.

Papermill Food Hub is an all-volunteer operation that provides weekly deliveries of food, diapers, and other supplies to Kensington, Fishtown, and Port Richmond families in need. This grant will support them in renting permanent space to store and prepare food for their weekly deliveries, launch a garden to grow produce for families, and hire a staff member to lead garden classes with neighborhood children. 

Photography Without Borders teaches young artists to tell their stories through photography to a wider audience. This grant will be used to expand their youth photography program to Kensington Health Sciences Academy in an after-school setting. 

Power Street Theatre is dedicated to connecting multicultural and intergenerational communities through the performing arts by sharing original stories that innovate and inspire. This grant will support their programs, including free bilingual performance and playwriting classes.

Providence Center provides children, teens, and adults a safe space to overcome trauma and grow to their full potential. This grant will be used to hire former Trauma Ambassadors in the recruitment and training of a new cohort. 

Ride Free provides Kensington- area youth with opportunities for creative self-expression, skill-building, and mentorship that help them envision a positive future and avoid or build pathways out of cycles of trauma, violence, and incarceration. This grant will complete their new studio’s fit-out with professional-grade instruments and equipment. 

Rock Ministries directly addresses many of the needs of the Kensington neighborhood: youth activities, addictions treatment assistance, homelessness, GED education, street cleaning, beautification, and more. This grant will fund a subscription to medical record software that tracks patient treatment and a mini-split heating/cooling system to operate their Wellness Center year-round. 

Sisters Returning Home help women returning from prison to re-establish connections to family and community and build and develop self-esteem, self-respect, self-confidence, and self-sufficiency. This grant will support ongoing programming and beds and bedding for clients transitioning into long-term housing. 

The Sisters of Saint Joseph Welcome Center offers immigrants and others opportunities to access education, support and free legal services, and programs leading to self-sufficiency. This grant will improve their ESOL and Citizenship Test Preparation Classes and expand their Outreach program that provides food and gift cards to students.

Taller Puertorriqueño is a community-based cultural organization whose primary purpose is to preserve, develop, and promote Puerto Rican arts and culture. This grant will support investments in staff, upgrading data entry technology capacity, general operations, and educational arts programming. 

Team NAS is a volunteer group of resident leaders that elevates neighborhood voices, connects residents to resources that promote wellness, and addresses inequities through advocacy and local action. This grant will support them in creating a cooperative neighborhood-wide block initiative through ongoing outreach, providing needed equipment, and cultivating platforms for neighborhood exchange and celebration. 

The Block Gives Back targets issues within the Philadelphia community and devises plans to recruit local volunteers, businesses, organizations, and community leaders to help in working toward a solution. This grant will be used to support ongoing programming such as affordable events and services to youth aged 5-24 in the Kensington neighborhood. 

The Salvation Army operates the New Day Drop-In Center, a safe, trauma-informed, welcoming, and non-judgmental space for sex workers and survivors of human trafficking. These funds will be used to maintain staff, cover transportation costs to appointments, purchase supplies for clients, secure increased security measures, and other operational costs. 

The Simple Way supports neighbors in building a neighborhood where everyone can belong and thrive and collaborates locally to increase neighborhood food security. This grant will be used to pay one of their current volunteers, digitize systems, and purchase inventory software. 

Urban Extreme Youth Development helps to rebuild communities by influencing the lives of youth and their families in addressing education, health, economic, and social needs. This grant will help them implement programming for mentoring, youth community engagement, and family engagement and support a third Bold and Beautiful Girls Conference to build power among female Kensington High School students. 

Youth United for Change develops young leaders in Philadelphia with a critical political, historical, and economic understanding of society and empowers them to improve the quality of their lives and communities. This grant will provide stipends for members to participate in community outreach efforts for their upcoming community campaign dealing with trash and litter.