Tag Archives: The CARE Center

The CARE Center Receives National Honor

CARE White House

(CARE Center Executive Director Anne Teschner, Student Tashia Davis, and First Lady Michelle Obama)

MPF grantee The CARE Center was a recent recipient of a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. Big congratulations to all at THE CARE Center for receiving this award presented by Michelle Obama at the White House last week.

You can read more about The CARE Center’s receiving the award here. You can read more about the other programs that received awards here. Finally, you can see a video of the entire presentation here. As you’ll see, there’s some pretty inspiring work being done not only at The CARE Center but all around the country as well.

FY11 Partners Selected!

After a typically long and difficult process, the Mt. Pleasant Fund’s Board of Directors recently made its funding decisions for the upcoming fiscal year. The following organizations will be receiving (or have already received) checks from the Fund:

Bridgeway of Lakewood, Colorado is receiving a grant for the sixth consecutive year. Bridgeway is a group home providing support for teen mothers and their children.

Canones Early Childhood Center in Canones, New Mexico received a grant from the Fund in 2007, but as the Fund’s guidelines changed, the Center no longer fit within our specific funding criteria. This year with the shift to considering only those agencies recommended to the board by the membership, Canones was once again eligible (given that one of our members asked that we invite a Letter of Intent). Canones Early Childhood Center provides services to pre-elementary school aged kids in rural northern New Mexico.

The CARE Center of Holyoke, Massachusetts is a school dedicated to supporting teen mothers and their children. This is our 7th year of supporting The CARE Center (our 6th consecutive year).

This is our third consecutive year of supporting Hope House of Arvada, Colorado. Hope House of Colorado is a group home and resource center for teen-aged moms and their children.

A Message From Carole Haas, the Executive Director at Bridgeway

As we celebrate our 25th year at Bridgeway I appreciate and am excited at the prospect of a national partnership for those of us whose mission is to work with the teen pregnant and parenting population.  Re-occurring national conferences could afford tremendous opportunities for sharing our unique expertise and experiences, as well as lending support to one another.

We really enjoyed the conference in September and thank Mt. Pleasant for making it possible.  There were so many wonderful ideas presented and we loved the tour of The Care Center.  It was really nice to be able to connect with everyone.

The focus of our weekly life skills classes at Bridgeway continues to address the diverse needs of our parenting teens during this challenging time in their lives.  So many of the girls have not been afforded positive role modeling nor caring intervention during their earlier years, and life skills are an integral part of our program. 

We are presently assessing the need for more concentrated preparation which will assist our teen moms as they near their transition time from Bridgeway to the larger community.  These challenges often seem overwhelming to a young mom.

Our parenting teens who are participating in our Youth Transition Program, living in their own apartments, have made tremendous progress with improving their independent living skills.  Initially some of the girls struggled with the additional responsibilities and independence, and in time have grown in their ability to become both successful parents and self sufficient.