The Ascienzo Family Foundation is happy to have Barbara Rhynders, a second grade teacher from Mill Road Elementary School, join our Board of Directors. She brings valued interest in the Red Hook community and a deep commitment to excellence in education to our foundation. We look forward to her contributions in coordinating plans for our future growth.
We're excited to display a new feature to the website that focuses on our grants extended last year. Aside from the formal Final Grant Reports that each grantee organization is required to file with us, our Ambassadors will be including some thoughts on their advocacy and photos of those impacted by our grants. The AFF is proud of the advocacies carried out by our class of 2015 ambassador group. Their stories and some grantee images will illustrate the connections that make our foundation unique.
Please check out their stories as we share them on our website.
Beginning November 1st, the Class of 2016 Ambassador Group will be sending us applications for grant causes in their neighborhoods. As with the initial grant cycle last year, the Board of Directors is looking forward to reviewing those possibilities. We also anticipate that many members of the 2015 Class will apply for grants this cycle as well, perhaps continuing their involvement with organizations they advocated for in the past, or coming to the Foundation with new programs and goals. The number of communities we now impact is growing, a large number in the northeast corridor and a few out west. We take pride in the great work that our volunteers have done, are doing, and are looking to do in the future.
The local BackPack Program that was initiated last year in the elementary schools at Mill Road has been extended this year to include both the Linden Avenue Middle School and Red Hook High School. Some 45 students from all schools in the Red Hook District during the year will be served. Finally, we're excited to partner locally with a number of wonderful organizations in creating a Community Social at the end of the year on December 22nd. We're thrilled to plan for an event that will serve a number of purposes:
i) Embrace the spirit of community;
ii) Highlight approved grants from our 2015 and 2016 Ambassador classes while introducing a new cohort of Ambassadors for 2017;
iii) Raise monies for local RH programs that local advocacy groups are presently supporting - or are creating - that share in our mission's spirit. Those groups include the Red Hook Faculty Association, a local advocacy group known as the Red Hook Harvest, and the Red Hook Public Library.
The Community Center that will host this end-of-year social is being created to coordinate inter-generational programs bringing together the youth of RH with the elder population. We can't think of a better way to assist in the promotion of such an endeavor than with the event as described above on December 22nd. The AFF is underwriting the cost of the evening, as plans are ongoing for donor participation and the evening's activities.
As always, We're Thinking of You and how you make a difference,
The AFF Board of Directors