This spring three local organizations – each approaching youth development and community education from a unique angle – applied for Youth Community Fund (YCF) grant funding. On June 8, YCF members met to consider each application, vote, and allocate a total of $5,000 in funding to:
Documentary Film Camp, Fall ’25/Winter ’26, The Picture House Regional Film Center ($1,200)
The Picture House’s Film Education Director Spencer Sapienza will lead a 4-5 day documentary filmmaking camp for 10-15 BET high-school students in late fall/early winter. Campers will script, develop, film, and edit a short documentary film focused on a local nonprofit. The result will serve as vehicle for promoting the mission and needs of that organization at no cost to them. A similar documentary filmmaking camp is happening in Summer 2025 to benefit Gramatan Village. YCF has awarded The Picture House a $1,200 grant in support of this program.
National Anniversary History Programming, The Ward House ($1,800)
In 2026, The Ward House will mark the 250th anniversary of our nation. The Friends of the Ward House will create up to three programs for students to learn about Revolutionary War history in their own backyards. Funding will be used to hire speakers, re-enactors, props, handouts, and materials. The goal is to host the programs in the public schools or libraries in BET. Programs will also be videotaped and posted to The Ward House website. YCF has allocated $1,800 towards The Ward House’s educational celebration.
Novelty Innovations Social Venture Accelerator ($2,000)
Bronxville-based Novelty Innovations empowers students to drive social change through STEM and entrepreneurship. They design creative, hands-on STEM kits centered on overlooked topics like permaculture and hydroponics, and donate them to underserved communities across the U.S. using 100% of our revenue. Simultaneously, they equip socially-conscious students with the mentorship and tools to launch their own impact-driven ventures through our Social Venture Accelerator.
With support from the Youth Community Fund, Novelty Innovations will launch an 11-week Social Venture Accelerator. The first three weeks will offer six core classes on nonprofit creation, design thinking, and impact measurement. For the remaining eight weeks, students will receive 24/7 support and 1-on-1 meetings from dedicated mentors, helping them apply what they’ve learned to their own ventures. YCF voted to allocate $2,000 toward this project led by Marcus Jun.
This spring, YCF Evaluator, Quinn Hershberg, chronicled the ways that YCF members learn alongside community members in preparation for this grant review and allocation process. Read Quinn’s article below. Thank you, Quinn!
::
How Youth Community Fund Members Prepare for Grantmaking
By Quinn Hershberg
YCF members learn about the grant evaluation and allocation process by shadowing adult volunteer evaluations for The Community Fund. Students are assigned specific agencies, which they can track through the email exchanges between the agencies and adult volunteers. They read grant applications and supporting documents, attend meetings with representatives of the applying agencies, and discuss the grant recommendations with the adult evaluators. Samantha Reiss-Gibson, an Evaluator [and now TCF board member] during the 2024/25 process, said:
“This year I was fortunate to work alongside Stella Lorge, a student from Eastchester High School and YCF member, as part of our Evaluation team. Stella joined us for our onsite tour of one of the healthcare grant applicants and helped us to compile our written grand recommendation to the board.”
The YCF members attend Agency Presentation Night at The Bronxville School during which each organization demonstrates their effectiveness ahead of final grant decision votes by the TCF Board. Youth Community Fund member James Nay of Bronxville High School has experience with the evaluation night, saying,
“It is a very organized night. Several organizations gave amazing presentations about what their organization’s were, what they represented, and why they deserved grant money. All of the people who presented were wonderful, and the night provided us with a lot of information about the grant evaluations process.”
Joel Serebransky, an Evaluator, who regularly communicated with his evaluation group that included a YCF member, added,
“I think having high school students shadowing the adult volunteers gives them unique exposure not only to the needs of their surrounding community but also the importance of donor-driven grants to fill these needs as well as the ‘soup-to-nuts’ granting process itself. The student on our team was involved in the entire evaluation process and was viewed not just as an observer…we actually valued her perspective especially since the agency we were evaluating was involved in youth education.”
YCF Grantmaking Process
After learning all about the evaluations and grant allocation process, the YCF membership has the opportunity to solicit and evaluate grant applications on its own on a much smaller scale.
These grant decisions were very difficult to make, and a lot of thought was involved in each choice. Anastasia Abramova, YCF president during this process in 2024 said about the matter:
“The hardest part of grant allocations was deciding exactly how much to allocate for each agency. It was vital to gather more than one opinion on the matter…With help from experienced Evaluators from The Community Fund and driven peers from the YCF, we were able to make effective decisions with determination, teamwork, and effective communication.”
These grants have and will continue to make significant impacts on the Bronxville, Eastchester, and Tuckahoe (BET) communities.
