Contra Costa Children and Families Commission Awards $83,000 in Prop. 10 Funds for Community Improvement Projects Family-Friendly Community Grants help Contra Costa residents make a difference for local children

—Contact: Tracy Irwin 925/335-9991 ext. 13

Martinez (Jan. 10, 2002) — The Contra Costa Children and Families Commission awarded nearly $83,000 in Proposition 10 funds to 18 community groups and nonprofit organizations to conduct local community improvement projects benefiting families with children up to age 5.

“Family-Friendly Community Grants provide small sums of money for parents and community members to take action and make the changes for young children that they want to see in their lives and in their communities,” said Brenda Blasingame, executive director of the Contra Costa Children and Families Commission. “The projects are driven by the people who know what’s best for their neighborhoods–the people who live there.”

Organizations will receive grants up to $5,000 for projects that provide enrichment activities for parents and children or improve community safety, such as three playground refurbishment projects in Antioch, Richmond and Pleasant Hill.

Other safety improvement projects include Richmond’s El Nuevo Mundo Children’s Center, a preschool for low-income children, which will provide bilingual seminars for 150 parents about proper smoke alarm use and the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning. The group decided to address this issue after a 4-year-old girl suffered third degree burns in a fire caused by improper wire connections in her bedroom. The family did not have working smoke detectors.

Fifty preschoolers in Concord will receive swim lessons and learn about water safety this summer in a $3,500 project coordinated by Liga Latina, a soccer league for Hispanic children, and the City of Concord Leisure Services. The impetus for this project came last summer when a local 3-year-old boy drowned in an apartment swimming pool.

The San Ramon Valley Child Care Association plans to strengthen relationships between parents and child care providers by sponsoring a day-long children’s fair with educational activities and entertainment for children receiving in-home child care. Recognizing that many of the Valley’s two-parent working families are often isolated from one another, the Association’s event will connect families to community resources, as well as to each other.

Funding for Family-Friendly Community Grants is available twice each year. The next cycle of funding will be available in the spring.

In 1998, California voters approved Proposition 10, which levied a 50 cent tax on each pack of cigarettes. Revenues generated are used to fund local health, child care and education programs that promote early childhood development, targeting children during their first five years of life, as well as anti-tobacco education. From the tax, approximately $9 million per year funds programs and projects in Contra Costa County.