Summary:
The Families, Parks & Recreation Department serves thousands of children at recreation centers, schools, and non-profit partner locations. Since 2006, FPR has systematically enhanced its children's programs, largely via grant funding, in order to reduce juvenile crime and improve academic performance at City schools. Grants are specifically being leveraged to: 1) engage older youth residing in high crime/low-income neighborhoods in evidence-based crime prevention programs; and 2) provide intensive academic support/counseling and workforce development training to the large number of academically-struggling older youth who attend our programs or reside in these neighborhoods.
To support this work, FPR is seeking to continue its successful OPASS AmeriCorps program for another 3-year grant period. OPASS is a collaborative partnership between the Florida Governor (FG), City of Orlando (COO), Orange County Public Schools (OCPS), and After-School All-Stars (ASAS) submitted under the CNCS Governor's and Mayor's Initiative. The mission of the project is to expand academic and social supports for at-risk youth in high poverty neighborhoods during the school day, after school and in the summer time, to improve their academic performance in Language Arts and Math.
The grant will provide funding for the COO to deploy forty (40) full-time AmeriCorps members to five city middle school sites (Carver M.S., Howard M.S., Jackson M.S., Lee M.S., Odyssey M.S.) to provide services to 1,500 students. Part of the COO's application this year includes a request to increase from 32 members in the past to 40 members in the future. This increase would allow the OPASS program to add an additional school site (Odyssey M.S.) and provide services to an additional 300 low-performing/at-risk students. The addition of the new program site would allow OPASS to serve residents from all six City of Orlando districts.
The grant will also provide funding for the City to hire a full-time (contract) Program Manager and full-time (contract) Program Assistant.
The program budget is $759,982 per year, for a total of $2,279,946 over the three-year project lifespan. Of this amount, the CNCS grant will provide $523,291 per year, the City will contribute $45,704/year as in-kind match (largely the value of office space, existing supplies/software/equipment, and existing budgeted staff salaries), and $190,987 per year in cash match which is included in the FPR budget. This is slightly less than the $193,245/year cash match contributed by the City during the past three years; as a result, the City will be able to operate a larger program at a lower cost than in prior years. This is a three year grant, renewable each year. |