Non-Profit Academy Awards
Organization of the Year - Innovation
Nominees
After years of planning, the FLITE Center opened in 2009 as Florida’s first and only One-Stop Resource Center serving Broward’s Transitional Independent Living (TIL) youth. The FLITE Center serves as a central resource for young people in Broward County’s dependency system offering a single, convenient point of access to the broad range of services and supports they need to become successful adults. FLITE supports TIL youth by offering a variety of services including an on-site school, employment assistance, a computer lab, a savings match program, workshops and support groups and other adult support services that promote successful transition to independence.
During the planning phase of this project, the Junior League of Great Fort Lauderdale met with key stakeholders in the county to garner support for its legacy project including United Way of Broward County, Community Foundation of Broward, ChildNet, Children’s Service Council of Broward County and our county’s broad network of service providers. Each party committed its support to this initiative by signing Letters of Understanding detailing their individual organization’s support to bring this project to fruition. These commitments, along with extensive fundraising by the Junior League, provided the seeds necessary to actualize this community initiative.
In its first year of operation, the agency had more than 1,000 unduplicated youth enter its doors and offered over 140 trainings with approximately 500 youth attending. Through this community investment, several young adults have successfully completed high school or obtained their GED through the College Boost Program. Several youth have realized their savings goals and have purchased their first cars through the savings match program. Many youth have successfully postponed parenthood and remained focused on school. Those with young kids have a Mommy and Me support group to learn about developmental milestones and parenting skills. Disengaged TIL youth have a safe place to connect with caring adults and other supportive youth. And at every turn, youth success is celebrated on the agency’s Wall of Fame and Facebook site.
In its short time, FLITE has made a tremendous impact on Broward’s ability to support youth exiting the foster care system and has changed how our community cares for its forgotten youth.
Hispanic Unity of Florida
Hispanic Unity of Florida is Broward County's largest agency dedicated to the immigrant population and provides services to more than 22,000 clients annually in four languages at six sites. Now in its 30th year of sevice, HUF has developed unique expertise that provides clients who are racially, culturally and economically diverse with the tools they need to build a new life in the United States. The agency achieves this goal through the provision of 21 core services that promote self-sufficiency, including its economic development programs tailored to the specific needs of moderate and low-income immigrants as well as education and civic engagement programs.
Over the last year and half, Hispanic Unity of Florida (HUF) and the Urban League of Broward County (UL) have introduced a powerful anti-poverty model to Broward County called the Center for Working Families (CWF.) CWFs offer a strategy for the public, non-profit, and private sectors to improve the lives of low-income families and communities. Through streamlined access to benefits and greater financial knowledge, families build financial stability and more strongly connect to the local economy. Families can purchase homes in their neighborhood, increase their consumer spending, and bring tax dollars into the community. From the beginning, HUF and UL worked to form a strong partnership not only with each other but with its funders and with other community partners. The Centers for Working Families builds on HUF’s and UL’s existing high quality services and combine them in ways that further assist low-income families to move toward economic success.
The program provides integrated services in three critical areas: Employment, Benefits and Work Supports and Financial Services.
Both agencies are also sharing program resources. Hispanic Unity has taken the lead on free tax preparation which is offered through the Urban League to its clients and the Urban League is the leader in Individual Development Accounts (IDA’s) which is available to HUF clients.
Russell Life Skills and Reading Foundation
The mission of the Russell Life Skills and Reading Foundation (RLSARF) is to eradicate illiteracy among our youth.
RLSARF currently operates 12 Russell Reading Room Centers throughout Broward and Miami-Dade Counties serving approximately 600 students during the school year and another 500 during the summer. The free program serves primarily minority, low-income children, including those from immigrant families, whose parents are lacking the skills, knowledge, and awareness needed to support their children's educational development.
The Russell Reading Rooms operate for 2 hours per day, 4 days per week during the Fall and Spring Academic sessions of the school year (August – June); longer periods in the summer. The curriculum is tailored to the students’ needs with a measure of creative freedom given to the highly experienced, Florida State Certified teachers to design an appropriate course of study and learning in a relaxed environment. The RRR program is fully compliant with county school board requirements ensuring consistency between educational and academic approaches.
This past year, RLSARF made reading and learning even more fun for two pilot sites by engaging older students in the innovative Shake, Rattle & Read Program (SRR) - a component of the RRR that uses dance instruction to enhance academic study, based on a number of studies that have proven a beneficial link between physical activities before school work. The dance instruction was conducted prior to the regular Reading Room literacy curriculum for one hour a day, two days per week at each of the two centers.
The overwhelming interest of the students resulted in an opportunity to incorporate additional skills into the literacy curriculum. Because the history of dance and movement proved to be so intriguing to the students, they wanted to learn more about related topics. This led to the unexpected benefit of the teachers being able to introduce and build more advanced library skills including research and study with interested students. It also helped spark their interest in pursuing further knowledge and facilitated reading comprehension and literacy.
