3-year Essex County Resilient Girls Project to support five nonprofits that will provide programs, measure progress, and share lessons learned
Essex County, MA, June 1, 2023 – The numbers are staggering. According to data released by the US CDC in February of this year, nearly 3 in 5 (57%) U.S. teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021—double that of boys, representing a nearly 60% increase and the highest level reported over the past decade.
Essex County is no exception. In February 2022, The Women’s Fund of Essex County, which makes grants to nonprofits that provide programs that support women and girls, convened seven local organizations and asked them to articulate their most urgent needs. They cited a growing incidence of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and isolation among girls, and there was unanimous agreement that adolescent mental health is a deep concern.
To support this need, and with its 20-year experience in making more than $3 million in grants to programs that make real and meaningful results in the lives of women and girls, The Women’s Fund applied for and was just awarded a three-year $210,000.00 grant from the Cummings $30 Million Grant Program to support its Essex County Resilient Girls Project.
Trish Moore, co-president of The Women’s Fund said, “We are honored that the Cummings Foundation believes The Women’s Fund is well-positioned to identify and work with impactful partner programs in the County. This Cummings Grant will allow us to help our non-profit partners make a real and positive impact on local adolescent girls’ mental health.”
“The way the local nonprofit sector perseveres, steps up, and pivots to meet the shifting needs of the community is most impressive,” said Cummings Foundation executive director Joyce Vyriotes. “We are incredibly grateful for these tireless efforts to support people in the community and to increase equity and access to opportunities.”
The Essex County Resilient Girls Project will support mental health and well-being programming for girls by funding five nonprofit partners to enable them to build or enhance programs directly impacting adolescent girls' mental health and well-being.
The Women’s Fund will convene the partner cohort twice a year to share their approach, successes, and challenges. Grantees will regularly convene to explore best practices and evaluate, pilot, build, and share mentoring, wellness, and resiliency curricula to be used within their own organizations. The participants will also hear from thought leaders on adolescent mental health and will use common evaluation and reporting to measure progress, identify unmet needs, and share lessons learned.
Moore noted that at the conclusion of the 3-year project, The Women’s Fund will publish results for dissemination across Essex County and beyond.
“We’re excited to get the Resilient Girls Project up and running,” said Moore. “And, we are grateful to the Cummings Foundation for their wonderful support of this important project.”
About The Women’s Fund of Essex County
Founded in 2003, The Women’s Fund of Essex County changes the lives of women and girls by funding programs that offer demonstrated results. Our proven Grant Allocation Process allows one donation to support a broad platform of programs with outcomes that are real and meaningful in the lives of not only Essex County families and the communities we call home. The Women’s Fund has awarded more than $3 million to over 100 non-profit organizations and is a field of interest fund of the Essex County Community Foundation of Danvers, MA. For more information visit https://www.thewomensfundec.org.
About Cummings Foundation
Woburn-based Cummings Foundation, Inc. was established in 1986 by Joyce and Bill Cummings of Winchester, MA and has grown to be one of the largest private foundations in New England. The Foundation directly operates its own charitable subsidiaries, including New Horizons retirement communities, in Marlborough and Woburn, and Cummings Health Sciences, LLC. Additional information is available at www.CummingsFoundation.org.
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