Impact Fairfield County (Impact FFC), the area’s premiere women’s collective giving circle, held ceremonies to award two $100,000 Core Mission Grants to Hall Neighborhood House (Bridgeport) and INTEMPO (Stamford).
Hall Neighborhood House (Hall) and INTEMPO were selected as the 2021 $100,000 Core Mission Grant winners by a vote of Impact FFC’s 248-women membership at their Annual Meeting on May 5. The two nonprofits were selected from an initial pool of 71 applicants after a rigorous, multi-step process, including both a virtual site visit and a presentation at Impact FFC’s Annual Meeting.
Hall, which provides comprehensive services that educate, enrich, and empower residents of all ages on the East Side of Bridgeport and surrounding community, will use the Grant to fund an on-site dental clinic, completing the second phase of a four-pronged approach to address the physical and behavioral health needs of residents of Bridgeport.
INTEMPO, which provides high-quality instrumental and choral music education to low-income children predominately from immigrant or first-generation backgrounds and from communities underrepresented in the arts, will use the Grant to engage 225 English Language Learners at three Stamford Public Schools through a music curriculum that will help them learn English and acclimate to their new school environment.
In Bridgeport, Impact FFC Co-Presidents Katharine Lumby and Steviann Martines presented the $100,000 check to Robert Dzurenda, Executive Director of Hall. Also in attendance were Joe Ganim, Mayor of Bridgeport; Maria Valle, East Side City Councilwoman; Carolyn Vermont, Mayor’s Community Liaison for the City of Bridgeport; Carol Donnelly, Andrea Canuel, Sandra Greer-Sanders, Tom Reilly, and Rick Sherrod, members of the Hall Board; Dr. Peter Ferrara, dentist guiding the development of the new dental clinic; and Karen Daley, COO of Optimus Community Health, which runs the primary health care clinic at Hall. Thanking Impact FFC for making their one-of-a-kind in-house dental clinic possible, Dzurenda emphasized how transformational this dental clinic will be for Hall’s community – from young children all the way to seniors – most of whom do not have the time, transportation or resources to obtain dental care otherwise. “We will be one of the only childcare programs in the city offering holistic healthcare on site,” Dzurenda said, “This sets us apart and allows us to deliver that gold standard of care that our children deserve.” Several Hall Board members and officials also spoke, echoing Dzurenda’s gratitude and excitement over the transformational support the clinic will provide for their community.
In Stamford, Lumby and Martines presented the $100,000 check to Angelica Durrell, Founder and Executive Director of INTEMPO. In attendance were Jim Himes, U.S. Congressman; David Martin, Mayor of Stamford; Dr. Tamu Lucero, Superintendent of Stamford Public Schools; Caroline Simmons and Corey Paris, Connecticut State Representatives; and Bonnie Currie, Carmen Domonkos, and Nancy Gramps, INTEMPO Board members. The audience, also including several Impact FFC members, was given a taste of the talent INTEMPO is cultivating in its students with a beautiful performance of two Guatemalan musical selections. Following the performance, Lucero spoke specifically to the tremendous intellectual, social-emotional, and artistic impact Durrell and INTEMPO are having on the newly arriving children of Stamford by integrating music into their education, while Martin, Himes, Simmons, and Paris expressed their gratitude for INTEMPO’s contribution to their community and amazement at the power of 248 women coming together to make this program a reality. Durrell thanked both local officials and Impact FFC for their support of INTEMPO, saying about Impact FFC: “This grant will really be transformative to the most vulnerable in our community. I thank you for seeing the future of the newly arrived children and how they’ll be woven into our common future.”
2021 was a record year for Impact FFC, with its greatest number of nonprofit applicants, members, and funds to be distributed since inception. In its sixth year of investing to transform the lives of Fairfield County’s neediest, Impact FFC has surpassed $1.25 million in total grant funding. This year’s grants to Hall and INTEMPO are the fourth Impact FFC $100,000 Grants to benefit both the Bridgeport and Stamford communities, resulting in $400,000 of total investment into each neighborhood.
About Impact FFC: Impact FFC is a collective giving circle whose mission is to empower women to engage in local philanthropy through deeper knowledge and active participation in grantmaking. It unites women by pooling membership funds to provide large, transformational grants to nonprofit organizations across Fairfield County. Since its inception in 2016, Impact FFC has provided over $1.25 million in grant funding to local nonprofits.
