Pictured (L to R): From RACCE: Robert Goodrich, Alicia Lind-Windham, Paola Vargas. From: The Waterbury Campaign School: Bilal Tajildeen, Rafael Rosario.

The recipients of Connecticut Community Foundation’s Trustee Fund 2024 Awards were announced at the Foundation’s annual meeting. The Trustee Fund Awards recognize people and organizations who collaborate for a common purpose, find innovative ways to meet important community needs, and who adapt to unexpected or changing circumstances to serve the Foundation’s 21-town community responsively and effectively. Each recipient received a $4,000 award to sustain their ongoing work.

The two groups that received awards at the Foundation’s Annual Meeting on September 10, 2024, included:

The Waterbury Campaign School:

The Waterbury Campaign School is a collaborative project supported by community partners It’s Time Waterbury, Waterbury Empowers the People to Act, BLAC/Waterbury Strong, and Brass City Gamers.

The idea for a Waterbury-specific campaign school curriculum came in 2021 when several members of these Waterbury-based organizations sought to offer a non-partisan program for aspiring civic leaders. They looked at statewide and national programs that might be offered, but couldn’t find a program with the depth, relevance and local context needed. The group created a new program, driven by a vision for locally tailored, impactful civic leadership training. Since then, the school has graduated three cohorts and hosted a successful mayoral forum.

Through networking, discussions, and learning opportunities, The Waterbury Campaign School aims to be a catalyst for a thriving, engaged community where each resident’s voice is not just heard but actively shapes the city’s future.

RACCE (Radical Advocates for Cross-Cultural Education):

RACCE’s mission is to challenge systems of oppression by advocating for culturally competent educational practices in Waterbury. RACCE received the award for their work to engage a grassroots strategy to increase localized air quality monitoring in collaboration with the Detroit-based environmental technology startup Just Air.

As a result, RACCE has engaged, trained, and/or paid six (6) youth and eight (8) adults to engage as citizen scientists monitoring the air they breathe at school, work or outside playing using small portable devices. This innovative scientific model has gained traction across the country and is now being adopted here in Connecticut.

Our community will continue to benefit from collecting, analyzing and advocating for more locally controlled air quality data, and additional dollars will allow RACCE to deploy stationary air quality monitors in homes and yards to gather additional data.

Tina Reardon, chair of the Trustee Fund commented, “Connecticut Community Foundation’s Trustee Fund meets annually to recognize the amazing work that is underway in our region, highlighting people and organizations who are making a tangible difference through innovative and collaborative efforts in Greater Waterbury and the Litchfield Hills. We are thrilled to congratulate The Waterbury Campaign School and RACCE for their outstanding contributions to our community and we look forward to their many future achievements.”