The Potter’s House (Dallas, TX)

Service program/grant connection: The Potter’s House works with the Corporation through its Challenge Grant.

Number of volunteers: The Potter’s House prisoner’s support network utilizes 130 volunteers. An additional 100 volunteers work on The Potter’s House Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative.

Type of service provided: The Potter’s House has 50-plus outreach programs, including a comprehensive outreach and ex-offender reentry initiative. As part of The Potter’s House reentry initiative, selected life skills television programming is broadcast to prisons nationwide. Prisoner support groups operated by the church provide former male and female offenders and their families with an accepting atmosphere where they can share time with counselors who offer understanding, concern mentoring.

Impact: Although the Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative is a new program, The Potter’s House ex-offender reentry initiative has already served 33,000 prisoners and broadcasts selected television programs to more than 425 prisons located throughout the country. The goal of both programs is to decrease the average recidivism rate of program participants.

Jewish Youth Philanthropy Institute (Rockville, MD)

Program/grant connection: The Jewish Youth Philanthropy Institute (JYPI) works with the Corporation through its Next Generation Grant.

Number of volunteers: In 2005, more than 100 teens will distribute the equivalent of $70,000 in grants to local, national and international nonprofit organizations.An additional 400 teens will participate in service-learning and alumni programming.

Type of service provided: JYPI’s mission is to advance the development of youth philanthropy and civic engagement in the Jewish community by engaging in tzedakah (charitable acts) and tikkun olam (repairing the world).

Impact: Four years after its inception, JYPI teens had donated more than $120,000 and hundreds of hours of community service to 36 different organizations while gaining a holistic view of the philanthropic process and developing a lifelong ethic of service. By the end of this program year, approximately 230 teens will have gone through the JYPI philanthropy program, providing brief but intense assistance to 20 nonprofit agencies serving a wide range of needs.

Notre Dame Mission Volunteers (Baltimore, MD)

Program/grant connection: Notre Dame Mission Volunteers works with the Corporation’s AmeriCorps*State/National Program.

Number of AmeriCorps members: There are more than 270 Notre Dame AmeriCorps members at 118 partnering sites in 15 cities.

Type of service provided: Notre Dame AmeriCorps members work to empower the poor through education and personal hands-on support. Members tutor children and adults in literacy, GED, and ESL, organize after-school enrichment activities, model and teach conflict resolution/parental effectiveness and involve community professionals in the learning process.

Impact: Over the last nine years, Notre Dame AmeriCorps members have helped almost 90,000 individuals learn to read, finish high school and develop necessary life skills through literacy, after-school and mentoring programs. In the last three years alone, Notre Dame AmeriCorps members provided tutoring and small group instruction to more than 22,000 low-income children and adults, helping more than two-thirds of these individuals advance to the next reading level. Notre Dame AmeriCorps’ out-of-school enrichment programs have provided access to homework clubs, art, music, creative writing, and sports for more than 9,000 at-risk children.