OHIO — Congresswoman Shontel Brown, along with the National Endowment for the Arts, announced federal arts grant funding for seven different organizations in northeast Ohio. 

One of those organizations is Fostering Hope. The organization’s director, Karen Carter, explained what they do.

“Fostering Hope’s mission is to connect and enrich youth living in residential treatment and foster care with unique experiences of hope and healing,” she said.

The total amount of grants is $110,000, and Fostering Hope is receiving $10,000 of that.

Carter said the goal of Fostering Hope is to give kids childhood experiences that they may not be getting in their normal life.

“We step in with joyful birthday celebrations, holiday celebrations,” she said. “We also provide therapeutic programs.”

The $10,000 is going toward the organization’s art programming, which Carter said is likely their biggest program.

“The kids that we serve have faced pretty severe trauma in their lives, and art is an incredible healing mechanism,” she said. “It gives them a chance for self expression, a chance to explore who they are, who they want to be.”

Carter said that each year Fostering Hope reaches more than 1,600 kids in northeast Ohio. The hope is that the number will expand with the grant money.

“A huge help to making sure that we can reach more kids in foster care and residential treatment with those art experiences and help them find that hope and healing,” she said.

Carter said the kids who participate in the art programming use it as a way to express themselves and that it is an outlet for them to feel calm. With the grant money, the hope is to make even more kids feel that same way.