Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Advocates Building Peaceful Communities has trained local teenagers to educate their peers about violence prevention for years.

This fall, a $20,000 grant from The Women’s Foundation of Colorado will help advance and expand that programming to include more resources and incorporate more research, Advocates Executive Director Diane Moore said.

The grant gives Advocates an “opportunity for us to enhance what we’ve been doing and really looking at best practices for prevention,” Moore said.

On Monday, students from Steamboat Springs, Soroco and Hayden high schools will attend a training session to learn to talk to fellow students about bullying, harassment, dating and violence, peer pressure and other topics. The $20,000 grant helps advance the training available, Moore said.

Part of the grant also will go toward a one-day Outward Bound trip open to seventh-grade girls in Routt County. Moore said she’s found funding for the trip, scheduled tentatively for a Saturday in May, to include seventh-grade boys, as well.

Advocates’ grant included funds from an anonymous donor and from the Women’s Foundation’s Direct Service Granting Program. A $20,000 donation from the grant fund and an anonymous donor went to the Boys & Girls Club of Craig. The grant fund gave $2,772 to the Yampa Valley Community Foundation to help fund Girls to Women, an annual career-guidance conference for eighth-grade girls.

Horizons receives $10K

Horizons Specialized Services has completed some maintenance work on its group homes and has more in the works to use a $10,000 Daniels Fund grant the organization received in September.

Horizons provides services to people with developmental disabilities in Routt, Moffat, Grand, Jackson and Rio Blanco counties.

The organization is using its grant for upgrades in its group homes, said Susan Mizen, executive director for Horizons. Projects include floor repairs and kitchen changes to make the space more accessible for wheelchair users, Mizen said.

Horizons sent a few representatives in mid-September to the last day of the Northwest Colorado Rural Philanthropy Days in Steamboat Springs. The group spoke to 10 potential funders and got green lights from five on proposals to increase early intervention services and to make group homes more energy efficient. Horizons grant writers are working on submitting those proposals for further consideration, Mizen said.