Blogs

Planned gifts are thoughtful and intentional charitable gifts that make an impact now and in the future. There is no one-size-fits-all planned giving solution because every donor has unique philanthropic goals and objectives. The Valley Community Foundation, a partner of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, launched a community-wide planned giving initiative in May 2017 called the Valley Gives Back™.

Since 1950, the New Haven Chorale has spread a joy and passion for choral music in Greater New Haven.

On October 7, 2017, it will hold an annual Gala to help it continue its mission bringing together community singers to present high-level, professionally-conducted choral music to the region. The evening event, “Direct from Las Vegas,” features The Edwards Twins, World-Famous Celebrity Impersonators, at the Pine Orchard Country Club in Branford, CT. Continue reading.

Chapel Haven is delighted to announce several upcoming events open to prospective parents. See below for more details and save your seat! If you are interested in Chapel Haven West, our Tucson, AZ-based campus program, please scroll down and register for an open house set for Veterans Day in Tucson.

This fall, there is a lot to see as Chapel Haven’s New Haven campus expansion has broken ground! Chapel Haven is underway with a multi-year campus expansion, with the ultimate goal of providing lifelong services to adults with social and developmental disabilities. Phase One of the project consists of construction of three new buildings, including a 32,500 SF building to house the REACH program, a new, state-of-the-art facility dedicated to aging services, allowing senior members of the community to continue living among friends and with independence, and a new welcome center. Read more about our expansion here

An early bird discount is available to families who apply to the REACH program before the winter holidays. Families who start the application process now and schedule a week visit before the end of 2017 can achieve a savings on the assessment that is a required part of the application process. Chapel Haven’s six-day visit gives applicants a chance to experience the program. Questions? Contact Christy Chandler in the Admissions Office at (203) 397-1714, x185, or cchandler@chapelhaven.org

Join us on these dates:

Tuesday, Oct. 17, 5-7 p.m. Join Chapel Haven for a parent-led discussion, “Moving Out and Making It: Life after High School.” Chapel Haven parents and students will share the factors they weighed as they looked at how to prepare their young adults for independence, including things that can be done during the high school years and their journey in looking at next-step programs. Join us at 5 p.m. to see life skills and dinner prep in action in the Chapel Haven apartment setting, then enjoy a light dinner and the parent panel.

Register here for Oct. 17 Evening Parent Mixer

Saturday, Nov. 11, 10 a.m. to noon, New Haven campus – Chapel Haven invites you to join us for a morning open house, which includes light breakfast, program overviews, campus tours, and the chance to mingle and chat with our parents and students.

This event takes place on a Saturday morning to help accommodate busy schedules.

Register here for Nov. 11 open house

Saturday, Dec. 9, 10 a.m. to noon – Holiday crafts workshop: Join us for a brief program overview of Chapel Haven, then make a holiday gift for a loved one with Chapel Haven’s UARTS, which will also offer unique, artisan products made by our students for sale for your holiday shopping! This event is free and open to all but pre-registration is kindly requested.

Register here for Dec. 9 open house

 Interested in Chapel Haven West, Tucson, AZ?

Chapel Haven drew more than 200 families and friends at its September 15 groundbreaking, celebrating a new chapter in Chapel Haven’s storied history.

Chapel Haven is underway with a multi-year campus expansion, with the ultimate goal of providing lifelong services to adults with social and developmental disabilities. Founded in 1972, Chapel Haven empowers 250 adults with a range of disabilities, from autism and Down Syndrome to Asperger Syndrome, to live independent and self-determined lives.

Among the featured speakers were State Comptroller Kevin Lembo, New Haven Mayor Toni Harp, Alderman Richard Furlow and Chapel Haven President Michael Storz, along with parents and adults. All attendees signed a ceremonial beam and toured the construction.

The event drew lots of media coverage. Click here to read a front-page story in the New Haven Register. The New Haven Independent also did a story. Click here to read the coverage in the New Haven Independent.

TV stations who covered the event included FoxNews 61. To see their coverage, click here

“I am so proud of Chapel Haven’s founding in 1972. We were the first agency of our kind to champion the idea that adults with disabilities can gain independent and live happy, productive lives,” Storz said. “With the expert help of SLAM architects and our building team, we are poised to become a pioneer once again with the planned addition of aging services and a complete transformation of our campus.”

Students Jamie Harberg and Andrew Burbank got the crowd singing along to songs from “Wicked” and “If I Had a Hammer.”

Chapel Haven was a pioneer when the agency was founded by two families on Chapel Street in New Haven in 1972, to help adults with disabilities move away from the protective wings of their parents and into a more independent, adult lifestyle. Fast forward 45 years and Chapel Haven has broken ground on a campus expansion that promises to be a national model in accommodating the changing needs of adults with disabilities as they age.

Dr. Fred Volkmar, a Chapel Haven board member and an internationally renowned expert in autism as the Irving B. Harris Professor at the Yale Child Study Center, said Chapel Haven is at the forefront.

“With earlier detection and treatment, many individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders are doing better overall, but often need continued support as they enter adulthood,” Dr. Volkmar said. “Chapel Haven has been a leader is providing such support to students interested in going on to college and adult independence.  It is one of the few programs around the country to offer comprehensive support for individuals and their families.”

Phase One consists of construction of three new buildings, including a new, 32,500 SF building to house the REACH program, where adults with developmental and social disabilities learn independent living, a welcome center, and a new, universally designed facility allowing those with significant life skills and medical needs to remain living among friends in a community they call home.

The project is being designed by S/L/A/M Collaborative & S/L/A/M Construction Services and owner’s representative Leland Torrence.

ABOUT CHAPEL HAVEN
Founded in 1972 in a house on Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, Chapel Haven is a nationally accredited transitional living program and approved private special education school with a mission of teaching adults with cognitive disabilities and social disabilities to live independent and productive lives. Chapel Haven has grown to serve more than 250 adults (18 years of age and older) in the residence and the community with three distinct programs; REACH, Asperger’s Syndrome Adult Transition (ASAT), and Chapel Haven West (Tucson, AZ). Read more at www.chapelhaven.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven

SCHOLARSHIPS AWARDED FROM MILTON FISHER FUND

Scholarships Awarded for Creativity and Innovation to 7; Honorable Mention to 7

New Haven, CT (September 20, 2017) - The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, the region’s largest grantmaker and charitable endowment, announces the winners of the 2017 Milton Fisher Scholarship for Innovation and Creativity. A total of $128,000 in college scholarships (payable over four years of college) was awarded this year to 7 high school students who came up with distinctive solutions to problems faced by their schools, communities, families, and the world. In addition, a total of $3,500 in scholarships was awarded to 7 high school students receiving honorable mentions.

While each application submitted for consideration highlighted a creative project, scholarships were awarded to the candidates who demonstrated the greatest innovation and whose projects have the most potential impact. The winners were recognized for projects involving the arts, science, technology, and social action.

The Milton Fisher Scholarship for Innovation and Creativity was established in 2003 at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven by the Reneé B. Fisher Foundation. This scholarship is not a traditional scholarship focused on rewarding academic achievement and addressing financial need.  Its specific goal is to reward and encourage innovative and creative problem-solving. High school juniors and seniors and college freshmen from Connecticut and the New York metropolitan area are eligible to apply. The application deadline for 2018 is April 30th; a complete of set of guidelines and a link to the online application can be found at www.rbffoundation.org and  www.cfgnh.org/scholarships. 

For more information, please email mfscholarship@gmail.com or contact Denise Canning at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven at 203-777-7076.

Milton Fisher was born and educated in New York City and was a Connecticut resident from 1960 until his death in 2001. He was an attorney and an investment banker who also taught a unique course for adults called "Applied Creativity" for over 25 years. His deep interest in the roots of creativity, and the many exercises he developed to help people become more innovative and creative in their lives, also led him to write the book Intuition: How to Use it in your Life, which has been translated into several languages. Fisher also served on the boards of several public companies and wrote two books about Wall Street.  
 
The Milton Fisher Scholarship is one of dozens of scholarships administered through The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. Thanks to the generosity of three generations of donors, The Community Foundation awarded over $30 million in grants and distributions in 2016 from charitable assets of more than $530 million composed of hundreds of individually named funds. In addition to its grantmaking, The Community Foundation helps build a stronger community by taking measures to improve student achievement, create healthy families in New Haven, promote local philanthropy through www.giveGreater.org® and The Great Give®, and encourage better understanding of the region. The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven’s 20-town service area includes: Ansonia, Bethany, Branford, Cheshire, Derby, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Milford, New Haven, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Oxford, Seymour, Shelton, Wallingford, West Haven and Woodbridge. For more information about The Community Foundation, visit www.cfgnh.org, find us on Facebook at www.facebook.org/cfgnh or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cfgnh. 

2017 Winners

Jack Adam (NYC iSchool, New York, NY) An adventurous street artist, Jack chose garbage as his canvas. His iconic signature tag — the stylized marker-drawn outline of a 1959 medium format Yashica-A camera and the words “Who Shot Who?” — began appearing in his neighborhood on hundreds of items discarded and left on the curb, sparking puzzlement, pleasure and conversations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. His quirky street art offered his neighbors unexpected, new ways of interacting with each other and with urban space. Jack plans to study Art at Yale University.

Alexander Bohr (Coventry High School, Coventry, CT) Caring deeply about the need to raise awareness about environmental sustainability and the need for more healthy food in his high school cafeteria and local food pantries, Alexander addressed both issues simultaneously by building a solar-powered acquaponic geodesic dome at his school that will help educate and feed his community. He will study Environmental Science at the University of Connecticut.

Gavrielle Kamen (Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC). Convinced that empathy and communication are the building blocks of world peace, Gavrielle created “Middle East Skype Sessions,” an organization that facilitates conversations between teenagers in the U.S. and teenagers in Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Pakistan and Afghanistan. She will major in Performance Studies and Peace and Conflict Resolution, with a minor in Middle East Studies, at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Ana Larrazolo (Veterans Memorial High School, Brownsville, TX)  Despite the discrimination and hostility, widespread illiteracy, and tremendous poverty endured by the Mexican-American residents of the Rio Grande Valley where she lives, Ana knew that the region was also a site of vibrant creativity.  She founded an artist collective in South Texas, Artistas de la Frontera, to help poets, painters, photographers, muralists and others inspire and support one another through poetry slams, exhibits and a zine. She will study Acting at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Neal Soni (Staples High School, Westport, CT) After seeing his grandfather suffer from excruciating low back pain, Neal devoted himself to developing an ingenious process to reduce the scarring that often occurs with back surgery. Combining the use of hydrogels with modeling prototype spinal columns through 3-D printing, Neal’s innovative intervention could have revolutionary and global impact. He will be a high school senior in 2017-2018.

George Stefanakis (Bronx High School of Science, Bronx, NY) The distinctive mathematical model and unorthodox conceptual framework in computational science that George developed can pave the way for a potentially groundbreaking approach to resolving some obstacles to the development of a large-scale quantum computer. He will major in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

William Yin (Greenwich High School, Greenwich, CT) Troubled that there was no user-friendly, low-cost diagnostic test for the early detection of atherosclerosis (the leading precursor to heart attacks and strokes and the leading cause of death worldwide), William filled this gap with a creative, life-saving device of his own design.  He developed an inexpensive, self-administered, tattoo-based biosensor patch resembling a Band-Aid® that can reliably detect arterial plaque build-up. He will study Bioengineering and Computer Science at Stanford University. 

2017 Honorable Mentions

Christopher Arrandale (Daniel Hand High School, Madison, CT) designed an innovative 3D printing curriculum for middle school students. He will be a high school senior in 2017-2018.

Melissa Gurzenda (St. Paul Catholic High School, Bristol, CT) invented a lap desk with a crank-powered light to help children in areas without electricity read and write at night. She will study Entrepreneurship at Bryan University.

Dana Joseph (Engineering and Science University Magnet School, West Haven, CT) created inventive classes called “Code Pink, Code Blue, Code You” to encourage girls to explore computer science. She will study Biomedical Engineering at Yale University. 

Jeffrey Richiez (Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology, New York, NY) developed software that helps teachers and guidance staff at his school do their jobs more efficiently.  He will study Computer Science at the State University of New York, New Paltz.

Elora Rosedale (Canton High School, Canton, CT) produced thoughtful chemotherapy companion bags to provide comfort and aid to patients going through chemotherapy.  She will attend the University of Hartford.

Kadir Sahin (Engineering and Science University Magnet School, West Haven, CT) developed an online, student-written publication to inform students city-wide of what is happening in all the high schools in the New Haven area and to give all students the chance to hone their skills as journalists and photographers.  He will be a high school senior in 2017-2018.

Skyler Szot (Farmington High School, Farmington, CT) designed and built durable turtle basking platforms that will enhance the health and wellbeing of the local turtle population while allowing park visitors to view the turtles. He will study Biomedical Engineering at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. 

To view this press release (with photos) online, visit https://www.cfgnh.org/MiltonFisher2016

HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

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As of October 5th, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services will stop taking DACA renewals. That means DACA recipients with expiring permits have only a few weeks to gather the $495 renewal application fee.

CT Students for a Dream is raising money to help DACA recipients pay for their renewals. Click here to learn more and join them.

Those with DACA permits that expire before March 5 2018 must apply for renewal by October 5th. Applications for financial assistance through the Renewal Scholarship Fund can be found here. 

CT Students for a Dream is a youth-led statewide network fighting for the rights of undocumented youth and their families.

Do you want to make a difference in your community? 
Join us at an orientation session for the 2018 Neighborhood Leadership Program.

New Haven Youth Conservation Corps Supervisor Shequerra Hobby presents a member of the group with a certificate honoring his efforts during their fourth annual energy efficiency canvassing program.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (Sept. 11, 2017) — The New Haven Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) recently celebrated the results of their annual energy efficiency canvassing program during a special ceremony hosted by United Illuminating (UI) as part of the Energize Connecticut initiative. For the fourth consecutive year, the teens spent four weeks targeting 10,000 New Haven homes promoting the financial benefits of Home Energy Solutions – Income Eligible, a no-cost energy assessment designed to increase comfort and lower energy bills for those meeting certain income requirements.

Nearly 150 New Haven residents signed up for the Home Energy Solutions – Income Eligible program as a result of the canvassing efforts, and 30 have already scheduled their assessment. On average, each resident will receive approximately $1,000 in weatherization services and save around $250 in annual energy costs. If everyone who registered is served through the Home Energy Solutions – Income Eligible program, the City of New Haven can save more than $35,000 in energy costs and reduce carbon emissions by more than 129 tons. That’s equivalent to removing 23 cars from the road for an entire year.

“In just one month, the New Haven Youth Conservation Corps helped many New Haven residents rethink the way they view energy efficiency and made an impact on the city that will last for years to come,” said Maritza Estremera, Home Energy Solutions – Income Eligible program manager, United Illuminating. “This has been the most successful year of canvassing to date and we look forward to supporting this program in 2018 and beyond.”

As a partner of the Energize Connecticut initiative, UI committed $5,000 to the efforts, in addition to supplying brochures, applications, backpacks, shirts and other useful materials. This canvassing was also part of New Haven’s “Clean Energy Summer,” a city-wide commitment to energy efficiency as part of the Mayor Toni Harp’s agreement with the Compact of Mayors, a global group combating climate change to develop a low-emission society.

UI is a subsidiary of AVANGRID, Inc. (NYSE: AGR). For more information on energy-saving programs and services provided through the Energize Connecticut initiative, call 1-877-WISE-USE or visit energizect.com.

Infant mortality rates are an important public health indicator for assessing and comparing the health and well-being of populations. Although the overall infant mortality rates in New Haven have declined since the 1980s (thanks in large part to the work of a Special Commission and its successor New Haven Healthy Start), there are still marked disparities between the mortality rates for white and non-white infants.  Read more...