Local nonprofits win grants to promote social change from L.I. Unitarian Universalist Fund

Several local organizations are among 15 nonprofits awarded a total of $378,000 by the Long Island Unitarian Universalist Fund in support of their efforts to advance progressive social change, the  New York Community Trust announced last week.

Among the nonprofit organizations awarded grants is the Riverhead-based Butterfly Effect Project, which received a $23,000 grant to support its leadership initiative, which creates opportunities for young people of color to advocate for change in their communities.

Tijuana Fulford, founder and executive director of the Butterfly Effect Project said the grant will support the group’s college access and college retention program. BEP helps its members attend college tours, access resources like scholarships and financial aid, and prepare federal financial aid application documents known as FASFA.

The group also helps high schoolers explore alternative pathways, including careers in public safety and other public service employment, various skilled trades, and entrepreneurship. 

“We start as early as 9th grade,” Fulford said in an interview Monday. “What to do after high school? We stress it’s education, employment or enlistment,” she said. “If not, it’s a ‘P and J sandwich’ —  prisons and jails.”

If the students choose college, Fulford said, BEP helps them pick one that best fits with them and their pocketbooks.

“Getting those questions answered is crucial for getting our youth ready for tomorrow and making sure they have all the help they need to gain access and move forward,” she said. That includes supporting students once they’re enrolled in college. 

“It might be helping them buy a textbook or helping them get home for the holidays,” Fulford said.

“The kids we have are awesome. They don’t ask for help unless they really need it,” she said.

A nonprofit affiliate of the Spanish language local news website Tu Prensa Local, was awarded $30,000 “to make local news more accessible to Latino residents on the East End, to increase their awareness, community connections, and civic participation.”

Tu Prensa Local co-publisher Maria del Mar Piedrabuena, who founded the nonprofit with co-publisher Juliana Holguin in late 2022, said the nonprofit’s focus is on community education. 

The Latino community on the East End is particularly susceptible to misinformation and disinformation, she said, because of its reliance on Spanish language social media, where misinformation and disinformation is “rampant,” Piedrabuena said.

“We will also focus on being the bridge connecting local resources in our towns, schools and communities with the people that benefit the most from them,” she said.

Piedrabuena and Holguin realized that Tu Prensa Local, which is published by Twin Forks Media, a company Piedrabuena and Holguin formed in 2019 to launch the news website, was “not a regular news site.”  In the Latino community onn the East End, there is an “increased need for information about how the systems and structures work, what those are, and why they are important,” Piedrabuena said. “This made us realize we had to focus on education,” she said. 

An example of their nonprofit’s work is a forum it held last March in collaboration with OLA of Eastern Long Island at LTV Studios in East Hampton. The forum, focused on best practices to support child victims of sexual assault, featured a panel including the deputy bureau chief for domestic violence and child abuse at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, a representative of a Suffolk-based victims services agency, a police representative and a survivor, speaking anonymously.  

“We want to do more of these, including in Spanish,” Piedrabuena said.

Sound Justice Initiative, based in Riverhead, was awarded a $20,000 grant for “creating an infrastructure for justice-involved individuals to gain access to information and services to help them navigate reentry.”

Sound Justice Initiative provides liberal arts courses and resources at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in collaboration with the Suffolk County Sheriff Office’s rehabilitation program. The goal of the program is to reduce recidivism — the likelihood of a criminal to reoffend — through education. See: From corrections to college: the Riverhead-based Sound Justice Initiative fights incarceration with education (June 13, 2022).

Long Island Pine Barrens Society was awarded $5,000 to equip sixth-graders with civic engagement skills by involving them in addressing a local environmental issue. The L.I. Pines Barrens Society, founded in 1977, is an advocate of preserving natural resources in the Pine Barrens through sound land use policies. 

LGBT Network was awarded $25,000 to support its effort to increase LGBT representation on local boards as well as at board meetings to advocate and protect LGBT rights. LGBT Network sponsors the North Fork Pride Day parade and events in Greenport.

OLA of Eastern Long Island received a $30,000 grant to advocate for state and local policies that protect the rights of Latino immigrants on Long Island’s East End.

See the complete list of grant awards here.  

“In true Unitarian Universalist spirit, our 2024 grantees are focused on supporting people disproportionately affected by systemic racism, our justice system, and environmental harms, to make their voices heard and advance social justice for future generations of Long Islanders,” said Deborah Little, chair of the Long Island Unitarian Universalist Fund advisory committee.