Princeton Community Foundation Awards Summer Program Grants

The Princeton Area Community Foundation recently awarded $199,000 in COVID-19 Relief & Recovery Fund grants to 25 nonprofits holding summer programs.

These programs will include instructions to help students overcome learning loss caused by the pandemic.

"Through these grants, we are helping 25 nonprofits engage 2,900 children in educational and social-emotional learning programs," said Jeffrey M. Vega, President & CEO of the Community Foundation.

"We know COVID-19 caused significant disruptions to education, especially for students living in under-resourced communities, and we hope these grants will help young people rebound from some of that learning loss and re-engage children in the many community-based programs that were forced to shut down last year."

To prepare for the third phase of COVID Relief funding, the Foundation reached out to nonprofits and other stakeholders to learn about needs throughout the region.

Learning loss due to the pandemic and helping prepare students to return to classrooms were among the highest priorities cited by nonprofits.

According to a report by JerseyCAN, a nonprofit focused on education, a majority of New Jersey's third- through eighth-graders were not on grade level at the start of the 2020-21 school year because of the pandemic.