Success Stories

All of the following Request for Grants met with the established funding guidelines of the NJ SIM Foundation:

• Charitable organizations based in the State of New Jersey that need financial and/or technical assistance with information technology to support their mission.
• Individuals residing in and studying in New Jersey who need financial assistance to continue their educations, particularly but not necessarily, in the field of information technology

The following organizations met our criteria and were granted awards:

• The Seeing Eye
• Fair Share Housing Development
• Somerset Hills Learning Institute
• Isles, Inc.
• Project Self-Sufficiency
• HOPES
• My Father’s House Orphanage
• Workforce Outsource Services
• CASA
• The Center for Great Expectations

The Seeing Eye

The Seeing Eye, Inc., is the oldest existing dog guide school in the world. Twelve times a year, as many as 24 students at a time visit the Morristown, N.J. campus to discover the exhilarating experience of traveling with a Seeing Eye dog.

Since 1929, The Seeing Eye has partnered with people who are blind who seek to enhance their independence, dignity, and self-confidence through the use of Seeing Eye dogs.

More than 15,000 of these specially bred and trained dogs have brought a new level of mobility, safety, and self-sufficiency to almost 8,000 men and women.

The Seeing Eye grant request would enable The Seeing Eye to upgrade their current telephone voicemail system. This system would provide a more user-friendly solution that would incorporate improved capabilities for:

• Email integration
• Inter-operation with email transcription solutions
• Pager alert capabilities
• Integrated voice messaging

The upgraded system will provide employees at their Washington Valley campus, Chester Breeding Facility and the Community Instructors and Outreach Specialists with a more reliable means of staying connected with each other and their graduates.

The Seeing Eye welcomes the opportunity to partner with the NJ SIM Foundation in their efforts to help blind and visually-impaired individuals turn obstacles into victories and Seeing Eye dogs into partners in life’s triumphs.

Fair Share Housing Development

The mission of the Fair Share Housing Development (FSHD) is to promote economically and racially diverse communities throughout southern New Jersey in an effort to improve the lives of the very poor and to reverse decades of decline and segregation in Camden and other cities. FSHD is the only provider of affordable housing for very low-income families in high-opportunity suburban neighborhoods in NJ.

The FSHD Education Center serves nearly 60 children in grades 1 through high school in their after-school Homework Club, which focuses on homework completion and daily reading for participating children, provides academic support and foundation skills enrichment, and access to the required technological and research resources that the Mount Laurel curriculum demands.

FSHD is seeking funding that would allow them to increase the capabilities of their available information technology infrastructure. This includes:

• Flat Screen monitors
• Desktop peripherals (mice, keyboards, speakers, etc.)
• Laptop computers
• Two camcorders

Somerset Hills Learning Institute

Founded in 1998, Somerset Hills Learning Institute is a private non-profit program that offers a broad spectrum of services to children, adolescents, and adults with autism.

The Institute is a dissemination site of the Princeton Child Development Institute and exists to provide science-based treatment and education to people with autism.

Somerset Hills Learning Institute also prepares professionals as future autism intervention resources in New Jersey, and through its research, pioneers comprehensive intervention models that may be used nationally and internationally for the benefit of people with autism.

Somerset Hills Learning Institute (SHLI) was awarded a grant by the NJ SIM Foundation to support the need for a video conferencing solution that would provide SHLI the capability to connect with other schools and universities located around the world for the purpose of collaboration, education and support of individuals with autism and their families.

As a result of the NJ SIM Foundation’s grant request, major corporations such as Cisco Systems and leading industry professionals have stepped forward to participate in this program to create and deliver this unique solution.

This program would not have been possible without the support of the NJ SIM Foundation.

Isles, Inc.

Isles, Inc. is a 28 year-old community development and environmental non-profit organization that was founded to foster self-reliance in families and healthy, sustainable communities.

Isles achieves its mission of strengthening communities by offering youth, families and communities community-based tools and services that restore the environment, build self-reliance and grow assets. Residents of Trenton access Isles by way of broad-reaching community development projects including “green” housing and real estate development, community planning, policy-relevant research, micro-business and wealth creation, foreclosure prevention, environmental health, community gardening, youth training and education, green collar job training and other market-based social enterprises.

Isles is requesting funding to improve their IT infrastructure platforms. While Isles services offer up-to-date computer labs for trainees and students who comprise their clientele, Isles staff are frequently left off the list of upgrades. The slim computing design that most staff, including most executives use is comprised of over 50 workstations that were manufactured more than 10 years ago. Continuing to use outdated technology is detrimental to the productivity of the staff as the decade old computers were designed for programs and operating systems that required lower memory and processing speeds not to mention that the computers are fragile and fail frequently.

An updated thin client model that will meet the needs of Isles is the WYSE C30LE with optional wireless capacity. The retail price for these units is $426, a price that will likely be reduced by locating the best offer and leveraging their purchase power. Isles is seeking to acquire 55 of these units.

Project Self-Sufficiency

Project Self-Sufficiency (PSS) is a private non-profit community-based 501(c)3 organization dedicated to improving the lives of low-income families residing in Sussex County and bordering areas of Morris and Warren County. The agency’s mission is to provide a broad spectrum of holistic and comprehensive services enabling low-income single parents, teen parents, displaced homemakers, and two-parent families to achieve personal and economic self-sufficiency, family stability, and to improve their lives and the lives of their children. Since 1986 we have served more than 16,000 families, over 6,000 women have participated in education and job training programs and over 5,000 previously unemployed women have gained unsubsidized employment.

PSS is seeking funding from the New Jersey SIM Foundation to create a Project Connect ten-station computer lab in Blairstown through our partnership with the First Presbyterian Church of Blairstown. After providing services in Sussex County for 20 years, PSS is entrenched in the social service delivery system of northwest New Jersey PSS has been working collaboratively for the past decade with all Sussex County public high schools in the delivery of employment, prevention, and health education and we have provided a myriad of seminars and support groups for adolescents aimed at reducing at-risk behaviors and increasing self-esteem.

Project Connect aims to bridge the “digital divide” in a rural section of New Jersey which is significantly lacking in resources by providing not only access to IT equipment but training in a range of basic computer skills and software applications.

Project Connect would serve the northernmost section of Warren County, and extremely rural portion of the state where opportunities are scare, unemployment is high, and intergenerational poverty is still prominent. Project Self-Sufficiency headquarters would remain at our main site in Newton, Sussex County, at our state-of-the-art brand new facilities. The main PSS site will offer a variety of supportive and ancillary services to the Project Connect participants, and will operate as the lead entity, overseeing and coordinating the Blairstown satellite sites with employers, educators, the WIB, the One-Stops, and more.

HOPES

The NJ SIM Foundation, Inc. a New Jersey Not for Profit 501(c)(3) corporation set up by the New Jersey Chapter of the Society for Information Management to assist worthy charities and individuals has awarded HOPES CAP, Inc. with a $23,000 grant through its “Giveback” Program.

According to NJ SIM the purpose of the “Giveback” Program is to leverage our success, resources and capabilities to return value to the IT profession and community at large, in the form of both relevant services and charitable assistance.

Through this grant HOPES CAP, Inc. will receive funds for technology supplies and equipment that will bring technology capabilities to those in need.

The principal source of funding for the NJ SIM Foundation is the New Jersey SIM Chapter. The Chapter sponsors an annual charitable golf event that has become very successful. One hundred percent of the “profits” from this event go to the NJ SIM Foundation. During this year’s golf outing two recipients of the 50/50 raffle donated their cash winnings valuing $1,100 to HOPES CAP, Inc.

HOPES CAP, Inc. would like to pay a special thanks to Yee Jao, NJ SIM Foundation member and former HOPES Head Start parent who made HOPES staff aware of this grant application opportunity. “As a HOPES Head Start Policy Council member Yee came to learn about the many services and programs offered through HOPES and although it’s been several years since Yee’s son Ethan was enrolled in HOPES she recognized the similarities between the mission of The NJ SIM Foundation and HOPES,” said Marisa Musachio, HOPES Director of Program

My Father’s House Orphanage

This grant was approved by the NJ SIM Foundation at the monthly meeting on January 14th, 2010. My Father’s House Orphanage is a charity that is based in Haiti. One of our SIM NJ members, Bruce Hawthorne and his wife Carol, are directly involved with this charity.

Workforce Outsource Services

The NJ SIM Foundation contributed $15,000 from the proceeds of the October Golf Outing at the Neshanic Valley Golf Course to the Workforce Outsource Services (WOS). The money will provide scholarships for two students to attend an intensive 16-month (four academic terms) IT certification program at Rutgers University where they will receive the skills necessary to work in a corporate environment.

WOS distinguishes itself as a unique non-profit organization that hires, formally educates, and trains low-income ethnic employees from local communities. WOS creates staff supplementation and outsourcing alternatives for NJ organizations such as Prudential and Medco through the education of qualified high school graduates from empowerment zones in inner cities.

WOS provides an alternative path to education and employment of inner-city adults by forming integrated affiliations with high schools, institutions of higher education, major corporations, and local social ventures. The firm serves as an “incubator” of adult development, by utilizing proven tools and theories to create ladders of ascent for under served populations. Graduates of the program will either stay as employees of WOS, be placed in other firms, or become entrepreneurs in their own businesses. WOS’ philosophy is to help create good citizens.

http://www.wforce.org/index.php

CASA

Court Appointed Special Advocates, is made up of volunteers who work as part of a network of local, statewide CASA programs to ensure children who are victims of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, or outright abandonment, have a voice in court proceedings that determine their fates.

The SIM NJ Foundation donated nine new Dell desktop computers to CASA which allowed them to more efficiently conduct operations. Chubb Coporation dontated time to install, configure and setup the network and software and SIM volunteers assisted in training CASA workers.

To visit the CASA website, click here.

The Center For Great Expectations

The SIM NJ Foundation purchased 11 Desktop PC's and donated them to The Center for Great Expectations.
Your advocacy on behalf of the women and children we serve at the Center is an amazing gift! We are so grateful to you for introducing the concept of computer training and presenting it to NJ SIM foundation.

Through this gift of computers we can afford our women an opportunity to learn a skill and break the cycle of poverty. I'll look forward to sharing this wonderful news at our board meeting this week.

Again, on behalf of women we serve, please accept our heartfelt gratitude.

Best Regards,

Peg Wright
President/CEO

Septeber 2007

Joe DeSiena presents German Jiminez of Kean University with a $2500 scholarship check from the SIM NJ Foundation.