Grantee Year: 2025

Funds will support their Storytime Program during the 2025-26 school year, helping to motivate and enhance reading readiness and provide 126,000+ new books for approximately 17,000 young children (and their teachers) who attend early childhood sites and kindergarten classrooms in low-income communities throughout the St. Louis metro region to foster a love of reading, while learning the essential early literacy skills required to become strong readers and lifelong learners.

Funds for the In-Home English Tutoring for Immigrant and Refugee Youth program will help ensure that more immigrant and refugee children from across diverse neighborhoods, backgrounds, learning needs, and from schools with varying ESL capacity and immigrant populations have the tools and opportunities to thrive.

Funds will support the daily operations of their Transitional Living Program, which provides safe housing and life skills development for youth experiencing homelessness. Grant support will help provide essentials such as food, household supplies, and the salaries of staff who make the greatest impact: therapists, youth development specialists, and life skills coaches.

Funds for food purchases will fill the gap of donated food in their distributions. They will be able to purchase higher quality items and ensure they have variety in food items. Funds help them meet a growing need, as they serve more food to more neighbors every year.

Funds will support general operations and allow Junior Achievement of Kentuckiana to continue to expand the services offered while meeting the growing demand of financial literacy and workforce development for young people.

General operating funds will provide vital support for their Youth Cultivating Change programming and the establishment of a permanent farm, allowing them to expand their reach and deepen the impact of hands-on, farm-based learning experiences for young people and their families.

General operating funds will ensure consistent, nutritious meals for at least 600 young people facing homelessness, food insecurity, and heightened discrimination — providing not just food, but the stability, dignity, and care they need to thrive.

Funds will support the School-Based Pantry program, helping to ensure that children and families have access to nutritious foods. Gleaners can source up to 8 meals for every $1 received, which means a grant of this size will provide approximately 60,000 meals.