IECA Foundation Grants Awarded

Online, February 23, 2010 (Newswire.com) - IECA Foundation Grants Awarded to Austin Bat Cave (ABC), Children's Help and Assistance for Residential Treatment (CHART), Community Preparatory School, and Motivating Our Students Through Experience (MOSTE)

The IECA Foundation Board announced four grant recipients following their January 2010 meeting in Falls Church, Virginia. The Hand & Wing program of the Austin Bat Cave (ABC) (Austin, Texas) received a $5,000 award. ABC is a non-profit writing and tutoring center for children in Austin, Texas, serving over 760 students and engaging a corps of 100 volunteers over the past school year. They provide children and teenagers (ages 6-18) with opportunities to develop their creative and expository writing skills and offer free school-based and after-school tutoring programs that connect a diverse population of young writers with a dynamic community of adult volunteers in Central Texas. ABC also provide free writing workshops, such as college-essay writing, screenwriting, hip-hop poetry, and writing about music, throughout the school year. Steve Antonoff, Board Chairman for the IECA Foundation, was enthusiastic about the Hand & Wing program application, "This program is a school-based project that aims to increase grammatical fluency through creative writing and is the perfect example of the kind of student outreach that the Foundation seeks to support." Hand & Wing was developed in conjunction with the Austin school district's Advancement Via Individual Determination program (AVID) in the fall of 2008. During the 2009-2010 school year, Hand & Wing will serve Austin and Anderson High Schools and Kealing Middle School.

The Children's Help and Assistance for Residential Treatment (CHART) (Tuscon, Arizona) was granted $2,975 from the Foundation. CHART provides educational and fiscal support services to adoptive families raising children with mental illnesses. Children who have survived abuse and neglect and who are part of the foster care system typically have no educational stability. Their academic performance is undermined by frequent moves, lack of emotional attachment, inadequate nutrition and sleep, and preoccupation with abuse. Funds from the IECA Foundation will enable CHART to reach out to adoptive families in crisis and to provide information and diagnostic and therapeutic resources. About CHART, Steve Antonoff remarked, "We are happy that these funds will help to support the special families who have reached out to these children in dire need."

The Community Preparatory School (Providence, Rhode Island) received a $5,000 grant to support their summer programs. Community Preparatory School is an independent middle school, founded in 1983 to challenge minority and low-income children to succeed in college-preparatory high school programs and to become community leaders.
IECA Foundation grants in the past have help support TestPrep, a two-week summer program that helps seventh and eighth graders prepare for the standardized tests necessary for admission into competitive college-prep high-school programs and SummerPrep which provides academic support and safe recreational activities for 120 low-income students of color during the month of July. Board Chairman Antonoff was enthusiastic in his praise, "With its high academic expectations and strong recreational component, the program provides a consistent focus on learning and a nurturing environment that fosters student achievement and the IECA Foundation is proud to support these goals."

The Foundation also renewed a previous grant of $5000 to: Motivating Our Students Through Experience (MOSTE) (Los Angeles, CA). MOSTE is a mentoring, scholarship, and college-access program for underserved Los Angeles girls who dream of going to college. MOSTE partners with middle schools and a university to provide a unique program that begins in 7th grade and continues through high school. The IECA award is for the support of "More MOSTE", a college-incentive and scholarship program for high school girls that partners with Occidental College in Los Angeles. Their goal is to remove traditional barriers among underserved girls to prepare and help fund all of their students to attend a four-year college. The program stresses personal development as well as academic achievement because they believe personal growth and understanding contribute to developing the whole college woman. "IECA Foundation is pleased to continue support of the MOSTE program and proud to witness the success stories of the young women who have benefited from the program and enrolled in colleges," remarked Steve Antonoff.

About the IECA Foundation: The IECA Foundation is the charitable arm of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, the nation's leading professional organization for educational placement advisors in private practice. IECA Foundation is dedicated to identifying and supporting programs with significant positive impact on students and their educational environments, especially those helping students make sound educational choices.
CONTACT: Pat Caffrey, IECA Administrator, 703-890-0135, [email protected]