Opened in 2002 across from an elementary school, ITS is a gated complex in a residential community that includes 56 two-, three- and four-bedroom garden style apartments, a community center with a children’s library and a playground. Miami-Dade County manages the facility and administers the support services provided to the residents to empower them to reach self-sufficiency. JLM volunteers provide life skills training and enrichment activities such as job fairs, holiday parties, back-to-school events and parenting classes. (History of JLM's Inn Transition)
Co-Chairs: Veronica Ramirez & Helen Picard
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Kathryn Menke Miller Community Service Awards
The Junior League of Miami awards college scholarships to high school senior girls for outstanding academic performance and community service. Every spring senior high school girls who demonstrated exceptional service to their community, both in and outside of school, while excelling in their academics are honored.
Chair: Mary Snow
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Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired - "Little Lighthouse"
Now in its second year, this popular community project will continue to provide League volunteers to facilitate playgroups and activities to further develop the skills of the children and parents in the Blind Babies program. League volunteers will also provide social support through weekly sessions with blind and severely visually impaired children.
Chairs: Holly Barnhart & Claudia Alegrett
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Step Up to the Plate
Step Up to the Plate--our local expansion of the Association of Junior Leagues International's Kids in the Kitchen program--will be working with Girl Scouts and their families to provide education, advocacy, and hands-on training on food and their health. The project explores many issues that are strands in the web of our complex food system. Whole Foods Lifestyle Center will host most of our monthly meetings and topics include the role of advertising, community, culture, history, manufacturing and nutrition. Field trips to Publix and the Redland farming community are planned.
Chairs: Kathleen Duran; Fernande Saintilis (Chair Elect); Rose Dorsainville (Chair Elect)
The Sundari Foundation – Project Lift for the Lotus House
The Lotus House women’s shelter in Overtown, operated by the Sundari Foundation, is a newly established shelter providing transitional housing, job training and support services for homeless women. Project Lift involves League members coordinating donations of furniture, delivery and set-up of new apartments for women transitioning from the Lotus House into homes of their own.
Chairs: Marcia Monserrat
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Therapy Dogs
League members will undergo testing and registration with their eligible dogs to participate in therapy sessions with children and the elderly at local hospitals, special needs centers, nursing homes and schools.
Chairs: Robin Preston & Heather Harris
AMI Kids WINGS South Florida - Associated Marine Insitute
Members will serve as crucial mentors and positive role models to the 20 residents who live at WINGS FL (Women in Need of Greater Strength for Life). These women are 14-19 year old juvenile offenders who are in different stages of pregnancy. Members will create and implement a series of workshops focused on relevant subjects such as parenting tips and life skills discussions. In addition, monthly group field trips will provide cultural or experiential opportunities for program residents.
Chairs: Colleen Kitchens & Nicole Brown
YMCA Preschool
JLM will help establish “reading centers” in each classroom of the new Allapattah YMCA Preschool (scheduled to open in October 2009). Members will design an intergenerational reading program and sign up to read to the preschoolers. Members will also help in selecting age-appropriate books, and assist in the design of a mini-checkout and tracking system.
Chairs: Terra Smith & Sienna Reynaga Owens
Community Grants 2009-10
The Junior League of Miami will direct $37,000 into the community in 2008-09 to improve the lives of women and children in our community.
Camillus House
Camillus House has been dedicated to providing services to the chronically homeless for over 50 years. JLM support will go toward the Emotional, Social and Health Enhancement (ESHE) Program. This holistic program allowed Camillus House to develop a welcoming atmosphere that invites homeless women to address their basic needs in a respectful, private and dignified manner. The program addresses many concerns, including maintaining the Women’s Shower Program (which allows women to get a hot shower and a change of clothes,) offering referrals for other outside support services (such as medical, mental and substance abuse services) and providing hot nutritious meals. The ESHE program also gives women who are entering a housing program an assortement of personal hygiene products.
Casa Valentina
Casa Valentina is an organization that provides housing and support services for young women who are “aging out” of foster care at the age of 18. Their JLM grant will support their “Welcome Home!” initiative which provides starter packages to new residents as they transition into their first apartment. Basics include linens, bathroom supplies, basic food staples, cleaning supplies and basic kitchenwares.
Educate Tomorrow
Educate Tomorrow is an organization that provides one-on-one educational mentors and opportunities for foster care youth who are "aging out" of the system at 18. JLM funds will support the third phase of a mentoring project called the "Girls' Leadership Project-Mind, Body and Soul Training." The first two phases were fully funded by the Women's Fund and each phase trained 10 girls each. Each girl is matched with a community mentor through the Mentor Miami Program. The Mind, Body and Soul Training provide 10 young women with an intense leadership retreat, which includes workshops, participation in civic and community events and skill training. The 10 women to participate in the third phase will be selected with the help from the girls from the first two phases and it is the hope that all 30 girls will become the mentors to foster girls in 9th and 10th grades.
Kristi House – Commercially Sexually Exploited Children's Project
Kristi House serves as the Child Advocacy Center for Miami-Dade County, charged with providing system coordination and direct services for all child sexual abuse cases countywide, at no cost to the clients. This grant will support Kristi House's Commercially Sexually Exploited Children’s project, specifically for six months of basic personal care items and living supplies needed by the girls at the drop-in center which serves adolescents entrapped in prostitution and pornography.
Linda Ray Intervention Center
The University of Miami's Linda Ray Intervention Center (LRIC) provides wrap-around early intervention services to babies and toddlers and their families who have been negatively impacted by parental substance abuse, family domestic violence, poverty, and limited parental education. Children are enrolled into the program as newborns, referred from the child welfare system, area medical providers and social service agencies, and are participants until the end of their third birthday school year after which they are transitioned to Head Start and MDCPS Pre-K programs. LRIC will use their grant for their "Take-Me-Along Art Initiative." This program will allow LRIC to rebuild their arts & crafts program for the babies and toddlers during school hours and then, allow them to send art supplies home to each child in individual, take-along carrying cases, with art project instructions that will go back and forth monthly, to the child's home and are returned to be replenished with supplies for the next month.
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