City of Bowie Awards Community Outreach Grants

Each year the Bowie City Council appropriates money to be used to support community groups that offer programs that provide a needed service to residents of Bowie. The Community Outreach Committee announces the winners of the 2014-2015 Grant Program:

1. Girls who Code @ Bowie Branch – “The Bowie Branch Library was recently approved to host this program by the national non-profit organization, Girls Who Code.” The program will provide an organized afterschool activity for middle and high school aged girls with the goal to “inspire, educate and equip them with the computing skills needed to pursue 21st century opportunities. It will provide gender parity in fields in which girls, especially girls of color, are underrepresented. The vision is that exposing girls to this at a young age will lead to more women working in the technology and engineering fields.

Establishing this club is one way the Bowie library staff is working to serve teens in a meaningful way and establish a positive relationship and lifelong learning experience with the Library. ($3,200)

2. Grief and Loss Counseling for Senior Citizens at the Bowie Senior Center – This program, hosted at the Bowie Senior Center, will provide a licensed counselor to work in concert with the Senior Center staff and through publicity in the local media to identify seniors who have suffered a loss and provide free counseling services to help them heal. ($3,000)

3. Mentoring Through Athletics (Flag Football) - Money directed to this program will be used to support a flag football team comprised of elementary school youngsters attending Northview Elementary who have been identified by their principal “as having shown the ability to handle the responsibility of managing their academics as well as athletics. The school must also believe that the individuals chosen can benefit from being part of a mentoring program. These factors can include being from a disadvantaged home where there is an absent parent, has financial challenges or be an individual student that can benefit from some character development training.”

Students will meet weekly for practices that will be preceded by a supervised study hall. Weekly character development reports focusing on discipline, accountability and responsibility will be prepared. This team will participate in a league with 7 other school teams from surrounding areas. ($1,800)

For more information about these program, contact City Hall at shein@cityofbowie.org, 301-809-3014.