A bunch of Philly teens just granted out $50,000 to local nonprofits

The Philadelphia Foundation program that puts grantmaking in young people’s hands has made its 2018 funding decisions.

YOUTHadelphia, the Youth Advisory Committee of the foundation’s Fund for Children, was established in 2004 to help local teens develop their leadership skills. Funding is supported by the Philadelphia Eagles and Philadelphia Phillies.

This cycle’s 21 participants determined their grantmaking focus areas to be youth wellness, women’s empowerment, college awareness and youth incarceration. Last week, the committee announced it was making a total of $50,000 in grants to six local nonprofits’ leadership- and advocacy-focused programs, of 34 applicants:

• People’s Emergency Center’s Youth HEALers Stand Up!, for youth and young adults who have experienced homelessness — $5,000
• Juntos’ Fuerza, for Latinx immigrant and first-generation youth — $5,000
• Youth Arts & Self-Empowerment Project, for youth in Philadelphia’s adult jails and young returning citizens — $10,000
• Urban Creators’ Youth Apprenticeship, for court-involved youth and young returning citizens — $10,000
• Project 440’s Instruments for Success and Doing Good, for School District of Philadelphia students interested in music, social entrepreneurship and service — $10,000
• After School Activities Partnerships’ Empowering Young Women Through Debate, for girls interested in competitive debate — $10,000

To make their decisions, YOUTHadelphia’s members, who come from 10 local schools, have been meeting since October to host open houses for potential applicants, research the nonprofits that applied for grants and make their grant selections.

The program has granted $1.1 million to local nonprofits in the past 14 years. Fuerza has received a YOUTHadelphia grant at least once before, in December 2015.