Posted - 3/8/2010

Wheels for Work Project receives National Recognition Award at Catholic Charities USA Centennial Summit held in Albany, Monday, March 8

Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA), the umbrella organization for all of the nation’s local Catholic Charities agencies, will hold a “Centennial Summit” on Monday, March 8, at the Desmond Hotel in Albany. The summit, part of the organization’s 100 year celebration, is sponsored by the New York State Council of Catholic Charities Directors. CCUSA is hosting 10 such summits around the country throughout 2010. It will focus on CCUSA’s goal of reducing poverty in America by half over the next decade.

The Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany Wheels for Work Program will be one of the honorees on Monday under the Centennial Recognition Program, which celebrates local services and programs that are effectively working to reduce poverty in America. Other recipients include Christopher Place Employment Academy from the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Closing the Gap in Student Performance from the Diocese of Buffalo, and Fortitude Housing from the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

The Wheels for Work Program initially began as a pilot project by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany at its Schenectady agency and subsequently became funded as a tri-county initiative through the New York State Department of Labor and then through funding made available from the NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. Realizing a need in the community through the Wheels for Work Program Catholic Charities is providing help to families who are the most vulnerable and living in impoverished conditions. Wheels for Work is viewed as an effective strategy that reduces poverty and provides economic justice to a segment of the working poor.

Over the past seven years the participants of the Wheels for Work initiative have increased their income and personal assets. Examples of the participants’ success include:

• Becoming gainfully employed in a new job
• Increasing their hours on their current job from part-time to full-time
• Becoming employed in a better-paying job
• Establishing a savings account
• Having furthered their education
• No longer needing public assistance

Vehicles are donated form the general public at-large. All vehicles are checked over at licensed automotive shops that assess what the vehicle needs in order to make it road ready. The Wheels for Work Program works collaboratively with local leaders, the business community and public policymakers to join with members of faith-based communities and civic groups to lend a committed hand to reduce the conditions that tend to immobilize families who live in poverty.

Sister Maureen Joyce, CEO for Catholic Charities said that “the Wheels for Work Program is essential to help those in the community especially the working poor to obtain decent transportation to get back and forth to work. Catholic Charities is grateful to CCUSA for this award and it is hopeful that the State of New York will continue to appropriate funding for this most worthwhile now nationally awarded program.”

Father Larry Snyder, the President of CCUSA, will present the award during a luncheon which begins at 12:30pm. Michele Abel, Program Director of the Catholic Charities Wheels for Work program serving Schenectady, Albany, and Rensselaer counties along with Jack Simeone, Ph.D., Associate Executive Director will accept the honor.

Posted - 3/8/2010

Kinship Caregiving Program Receives $125,000 Grant

Catholic Charities of Columbia and Greene Counties in partnership with Catholic Charities of Schoharie County have received a grant from the Office of Child and Family Services for $125,000 over five years to provide services and support to kinship care families through the Kinship Caregiving Program. The program comes to the aid of families who are stepping in to help keep a relative’s child out of the county’s foster care system. Many of the caregivers for these children are their grandparents. Only 8 of 34 proposals received funding throughout New York State and only three of these target rural counties with unique needs and challenges. Kinship families are those situations where a grandparent, relative or other caregiver assumes primary care of children. In Columbia, Greene and Schoharie Counties, there are more than 3000 children living in a grandparent headed household.

“Funding provided by the United Way of Columbia and Greene Counties and the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation enabled Catholic Charities of Columbia and Greene Counties to began a pilot kinship program in Columbia County. With the award from OCFS, we are able to increase the number of families in Columbia County and to expand the program into Greene County” says Theresa Lux, Family Services Director at Catholic Charities of Columbia and Greene Counties.

“The untold story lies in the benefit the families will receive from being joined together by the Kinship Caregiving Program. Educational and support groups provide the opportunity for families to ‘belong’. It is the hope and intention that the Kinship Caregiving Program will fill in the gap for non-traditional families to provide them stability and a positive outlook for the future” Lux stated.

“For a dozen years and still going strong the Kinship Caregiving Program in Albany County is pleased to support the roll out of a kinship support program in Columbia, Greene and Schoharie Counties. As a sister agency through Catholic Charities it is profoundly satisfying to see a program successful in one area spreading to meet the needs of families in another county” says Renée Benson, Executive Director of Catholic Charities Caregivers Support Services which runs the Albany, Schenectady and Rensselaer based Kinship Caregiving Program.

“The kinship program model is a win-win solution for the Counties, the families and tax payers. It helps the families by providing support, guidance and improving family relationships, stabilizing the home, improving youth educational outcomes and more. It saves the county money by helping to keep the youth out of foster care which helps the county and also provides services that help to lighten the load of the county and when ever you do that it saves tax payers dollars. We are excited to be working with these newly funded programs.”

“Kinship Caregiving Program is yet another way we live the values and mission of Catholic Charities” says Tim Mulligan, Executive Director of Catholic Charities of Schoharie County. “Our agencies bring a common philosophy: to serve and empower people in need and to do this with mercy and justice. It’s really very simple. Kinship Care helps families stay together and thrive together!”

Posted 3-11-2010

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany From Fidelis Care New York

Sister Maureen Joyce, Chief Executive Officer of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany, New York acknowledges the awarding of the 2009 Fidelis Care Community Grant Fund for the Basic Needs Outreach and After School programs headed by Catholic Charities Central Office.

The $124,000 grant award will support Catholic Charities in offering human services to the underserved children, families and elderly by assisting them to gain access to necessary support services within the Greater Capital Region of Upstate New York. These programs are available to the poor and working poor who often reside in impoverished conditions and lack access to affordable after school care and basic need services, namely food, clothing, affordable housing, utilities, health care, social services and transportation.

Sister Maureen Joyce said, “I am thankful that the Fidelis Care Board of Directors has granted us funding for the sixth consecutive year and this year the beneficiaries will be our Basic Needs Outreach, After School and Summer Camp programs.” The grant will support the Catholic Charities Basic Needs Centers, namely the Hilltowns Community Resource Center in Westerlo, Conserns-U in Rensselaer, and the North Central Empowerment Center in the inner city of Troy. In addition, the Fidelis Care Grant will provide funding for its after-school program in the South End of Albany (New Day Art) and Camp Scully, an overnight camping program located in North Greenbush. In speaking about the benefits of this grant award, Sister Maureen states that “the grant funds will be used to help the underserved individuals and families residing in the surrounding areas that they serve. The goals and activities of these projects of Catholic Charities truly reflect the ministry of Fidelis Care in New York State, that is, to build linkages and systems for the coordination of care services in addressing the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs especially among the poor and vulnerable members of our local communities.”

Catholic Charities is the human service and social justice arm of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany. Catholic Charities, a system of 13 multipurpose agencies throughout 14 counties provides a range of services to well over 90,000 individuals and their respective families on an annual basis.

Posted 3-11-2010

Catholic Charities Receives a “Gift of Warmth” from the National Grid Foundation By Ben Patten

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany will be able to provide additional energy assistance to needy families during this cold winter with the National Grid Foundation’s $30,000 “Gift of Warmth” grant. This gift is a community-challenge based grant to support Catholic Charities’ Emergency Home Energy Assistance Fund.

Executive Director of the National Grid Foundation, Bob Keller presented the check Tuesday afternoon to Catholic Charities Development Director Betsy O'Haire, Bishop Howard Hubbard of the Albany Diocese and Albany County Executive Mike Breslin. Mr. Keller praised the work of Catholic Charities and in particular the Emergency Home Energy Assistance Fund which the National Grid Foundation would be helping to fund for the second consecutive year. Mr. Keller said that "residents should think about their neighbors and if they could spare a couple of dollars and send it to Catholic Charities Heating Fund, to help make sure that everyone makes it through the winter warm." Keller continued that "it doesn't matter how or what somebody uses to heat their home with, this is for anyone that uses any type of fuel." "The National Grid Foundation is thrilled to be donating $30,000 to the Catholic Charities' Emergency Home Energy Assistance Fund as a matching grant progam this year and that people from Albany and the surrounding areas have given so generously and we hope sincerely that they will continue to give throughout the winter time," said Keller.

Bishop Hubbard after thanking Bob Keller on behalf of the National Grid Foundation and also Mayor Jerry Jennings and Mike Breslin for representing city and county government, said that the focus of most people recently has been on the terrible tragedy in Haiti "which has been a natural disaster and humanitarian crisis of epic proportions and certainly we want to put our prayers and our concern and our generosity behind those people who have suffered such tragedy." "On the other hand, the Bishop continued, there continues to be great tragedy locally as well." "We see a 10% unemployment rate, a 17% underemployment rate and we know from our food pantries and from the requests being made of Catholic Charities that people are really suffering. We've seen our emergency assistance for food and for fuel increase exponetially and I don't see it reversing itself in the immediate future, so a grant of this nature is so important to people locally that are experiencing their own form of economic earthquake that has hurt people substansially."

Albany County Executive Mike Breslin said that in county government "there is a certain regimine that we have to go through and we don't catch those people in the beginning, when they first need it, when they are first beginning to get cold, when something could be done that would be much more effective and nobody reaches out more regularly and more humanely than does Catholic Charities to identify those people, indeed they self-identify and come and they feel much more comfortable about the assistance they receive." "I cannot think of any better place to give this donation and because it is doubled with the contributions to give it to Catholic Charities who will make such good use of it and so many people who otherwise would be cold or would be diverting other funds that are more necessary for other things that will not have to do so, said Breslin.

The Catholic Charities Home Energy Assistance Fund serves families that have exhausted all other resources. Assistance includes electricity, oil, kerosene and gas heating as well as wood purchased for heating systems. The fund also addresses threats of utility interruptions for families in dire need and unable to lose perishable foods and medicines that require refrigeration.

The grant from the National Grid Foundation will be divided, along with community matching gifts, according to the need and availability of additional resources, among the agencies of Catholic Charities within the 14 counties of the Diocese of Albany.

The National Grid Foundation was created to enhance the quality of life in areas where National Grid provides services. Its objective is based on the principle that giving people the tools to build hope is an essential ingredient in the development of individuals, families and communities. Since its inception in December of 1998, the Foundation has provided more than $15 million in grants to hundreds of organizations.

This generous gift addresses many of the requests for need within our community, but cannot satisfy the multitude of applications for assistance. Anyone wishing to donate to the “Gift of Warmth” home energy assistance fund may send a check to Catholic Charities, Attn: Gift of Warmth, 40 N. Main Avenue, Albany, NY 12203.