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April 28, 2021

This week we received an update from Connecticut's Congressional Delegation that they were able to secure dedicated funding for summer enrichment programs. These programs were designed to connect students to high-quality summer enrichment and recreational opportunities, with an emphasis on communities and children who were most impacted by the pandemic.

The state’s summer enrichment program, which came out of stakeholder discussions as part of the state's AccelerateCT task force, will provide $11 million in grants to various stakeholders to enable program providers to support and scale up existing high-quality programs in order to reach students they wouldn’t otherwise have the capacity to serve.

Connecticut will award $11 million through a two-pronged approach, with:

Expansion Grants

  • Enable program providers to support and scale up existing high-quality programs to reach students they wouldn’t otherwise have the capacity to serve.
  • Funds should be used to subsidize enrollment costs for students with free/reduced-price lunch status, hire more staff, rent larger facilities, or expand ages served, among other ways.
  • Recipients will largely be community-based organizations, child care centers, municipal-run programs, and school district-run programs.
  • Grants will fund up to $25,000, and applicants can apply for up to three grants, with a maximum of one grant per site/location an organization operates.

Innovation Grants

  • Help any entity provide students from underserved communities with access to bold, new summer programming.
  • Grants will prioritize programs that can demonstrate the ability to quickly build and operationalize their program for this summer while demonstrating an evidence-based track record of improving student outcomes.
  • Applicants can apply for grants between $50,000 and $250,000, with one application per organization possible.

Deadline to Apply

Expansion Grants and Innovation Grants applications are due on May 10th at 5pm, with the announcement of awardees on May 24th. Grants can fund programs covering the time period of June 1st-September 3rd, 2021.

Apply For Grants Here