The Art & Leadership Program targets Campbell County youth, ages 11-13, who show artistic promise and leadership ability. This art-centered program involves expression through the visual, performing and language arts, tackles gender specific social issues, and presents relevant life lessons including leadership and healthy lifestyle components. Areas of concentration in the program include identity, creativity, self-esteem, positive role models and good decision making. Participants also learn about art-related career opportunities. Youth are nominated for the program by art teachers and administrators for local schools and youth organizations; those who choose to participate receive a full scholarship. We hire a site coordinator for both boys and girls programs, as well as high school and college interns to serve as role models and lesson leaders. An on-call, on-site counselor is hired to provide the staff with professional insight in working with youth and any support the participants may need. Local and regional artists conduct hands-on workshops for the participants. Our proposal seeks funding from the Wyoming Women’s Foundation to assist with costs for the girls program.

CLIMB Wyoming requests $10,000 in operating support to ensure the continued success of the CLIMB Wyoming programs to meet one of the greatest needs in communities across Wyoming: to help poor single mothers and their children move out of poverty - permanently. Each CLIMB program provides a unique combination of services including comprehensive life skills training, specialized job training and placement, and individual and group counseling. CLIMB program staff members provide services that ensure participants complete the program and are placed in jobs that offer security and stability, long-term employment and growth, and pay that enables them to increase their wages, to reduce their reliance on government support, and to become self-sufficient. Under this proposal, the CLIMB Wyoming programs will serve at least 115 single mothers living in poverty and approximately 230 children from October 2007 to September 2008. CLIMB participants will be trained in demand occupations and non-traditional fields (such as healthcare, construction trades, and general business positions) that meet the current needs of the local workforce.

The LCCC Foundation seeks $10,000 to provide support services for women enrolled in postsecondary education at LCCC. The project addresses all three 2007 funding priorities of the WyWF. The College's Transitional Services Office (TSO), housed within the Student Services Division, provides financial and educational/career advising services with an emphasis on students defined under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins) as "special populations," many of whom are women. The TSO serves approximately 100 women annually. The College provides base funding for the TSO, including office space and a coordinator. Funding for direct student support comes from a number of other sources, including federal and private. The WyWF has provided support to TSO in the past. With the advent of the new Perkins legislation, there is expanded opportunity to serve individuals in a wider variety of program areas at the College. The College, therefore, is seeking funds to assist students across that expanded spectrum. Funds are requested specifically to address critical childcare and transportation needs as well to implement a financial literacy training program.

The Latina Cooking Class Program is simply designed and highly effective. The program was initially created to get women together to hear about relevant, important issues that affect the lives of women immigrants. Subjects like depression, nutrition, family literacy and domestic violence are difficult topics to address at our existing informational forum programs. Women are uncomfortable listening to these topics in the presence of their husbands or boyfriends and attendance at these events has been low compared to the popular forums on immigration law, legal rights and income taxes. To meet this important need for women, we invited women to the Cooking Class Program, a non threatening class that raised no questions by the men in their lives. While the women learned a new recipe, made new friends they also listened to brief presentations from area service providers about relevant topics. After the presentation, the women had the chance to discuss the issues among themselves and to interact with the community service provider.

The Seton House "Bracelets of Hope" project was initially funded by the WyWF. The initial effort, carried out during Seton House's annual Mother's Day fund-raising, was a financial success. More important, the women who tool part by designing, creating and selling the bracelets learned new marketable skills that significantly increased their self-esteem. Seton House has continued this project as a regular part of programming. The increase in job skills, and self-esteem in particular, has been dramatic. This project has been received very well in the community and we have received requests to expand our project to include other jewelry such as necklace/earring/bracelet sets, beaded bookmarks, and rosary bracelets. The requested funding from the WyWF will provide high quality jewelry-making materials to enable us to expand this project to include other jewelry items.

Northwest Community College Foundation Trapper Aces Single Mother's Support Program

The Trapper Aces Single Mother's Support Program will provide eight weeks of intensive informational workshops and create a support and assistance group for up to eighteen single mothers who are also students at Northwest College.

Dollars & Sense is a hands on skill building financial education program. This proposal seeks funding to offer the program to a minimum of 120 low income women to assist them in building their assets, establish healthy financial habits, build credit and achieve financial independence. The program has eight components each an hour in length. The participants receive information and skill development on topics such as understanding credit and debt, budgeting, financial planning, predatory lending, insurance, identity theft, financial institutions and taxes. Rural Dynamics has two office locations in Wyoming, Casper and Sheridan. Both of these locations will be used to offer women's financial education programming.