Awarded Grants

Building on the relationships established, and needs identified in Phase One of the FCGrant, FRAFCA will develop an innovative program that would offer youth in, and from foster care a chance to represent themselves in the City of Surrey’s planning and decision-making process. We will complete this task by: 1) Creating a safe youth-only space to provide resources and meet on a regular basis; 2) develop an Indigenous Youth Leadership Training model and train two youth facilitators using the Indigenize Curriculum and addresses the 6 domains as well as their unique barriers to post care services. 3) establishing the Surrey Indigenous Youth Planning Table with key stakeholders. 4) Hold a Youth Honouring Event in partnership with Kwantlen First Nation that would invite the public to learn more about the experiences of Indigenous youth aging out of care; 5)prepare a gap analysis report and briefing note for the City of Surrey Council meeting in the fall. This year in the City of Surrey 56 Indigenous youth will age out of foster care. Surrey is home to 12000 aboriginal people. The median population age is 25.2 years old, which means it’s a young population with 50 percent under the age of 25. In our Phase One project, titled the Rites of Passage Project a major need identified was for appropriate and safe housing for youth aging out of care in Surrey. 50% of our participants were homeless at one point during our last project.

The Bagel Club Catering Social Enterprise project is a catering business that specializes in Vegetarian Mediterranean Cuisine. This service offers high quality food while training and employing adults with special needs. Participants learn all the elements of how to work and operate a catering business. These include meal preparations, food safety, and customer service. Participants are paid an hourly rate for their service. This is led by Bagel Club Catering trained staff, assisted by outside professionals such as chefs, nutritionists, and business people. Participants are trained and employed with Bagel Club Catering with the goal of part time employment. This project meets the growing need of training and employment opportunities for able special needs adults. Our persons served want to contribute to their community and society. It heightens their self worth and allows them to increase their income and lessen reliance on government funds. In addition, we see that in the past year there is a great need for this business in the community.

Our mission is to foster employment for individuals facing major barriers to work, particularly those with mental and physical disabilities. We do this through the social enterprises we support which provide (a) sustained, dignified, and meaningful employment for our participants and (b) a way for consumers to support social values through their purchases. Social enterprises have gained recognition as excellent toold for providing employment to individuals facing barriers to work, including those with disabilities. Through our own social enterprise work since 2006, we too have had success: 30 individuals facing major barriers had employment in 2010, 28 of these faced a disability, 17 of those 28 have been employed for more than one year, and 11 have been employed for more than two years.