The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport is a 63 year old ecumenical and social service agency originally founded as The Council for Interchurch Cooperation.  The founding vision remains true today: to respond to human need and develop cooperative action in the greater Bridgeport area beyond the capacity of any single congregation, expressed in the slogan “We do it better together.”  Today, our mission is one that compels us “to act together…people of faith connecting to change lives and strengthen community.”  Our service area is concentrated on people from Bridgeport and the suburban ring: Fairfield , Easton , Trumbull , Shelton , Monroe and Stratford .

             We live this mission through five program emphases.  Three form our “continuum of care:” Project Learn provides after school homework tutorial help for elementary school students through community-based sites in churches and public housing sites.  The Janus Center for Youth in Crisis provides intervention and respite care for youth, aged 11-17, and their families.  CO-OP Center provides re-entry services for ex-offenders to enable them to be productive members of society.

             Our Hunger Outreach manages Federal funding and assists  34 area feeding programs in coordinating their services.  Bridge Building offers ecumenical and interfaith opportunities to build community through education and dialogue.

             This overview examines The Council’s unique contribution to Greater Bridgeport in services of which we are the only, the best or the biggest provider.

 THE ONLY

The Janus Center for Youth in Crisis (JCYIC) provides the only 24 hour mobile crisis intervention and respite care for youth 11-17 and their families in greater Bridgeport .  We offer a combination of home-like care in gender specific respite apartments and host homes.  Reconciliation rate with families for children who participate in the residential program is 95% up to three months after reunion.  We offer “wrap around” services of counseling, mentoring and academic assistance.   Stays average ten days or less.

 “Work and Learn,” a project of JCYIC, serves middle school students in grades 7 and 8, referred to us by school and social service professionals, who are at risk of entering the juvenile justice system.  These are, as one staff member observed, “the kids they are really worried about.”  The program runs after school and employs a business model, where the young people develop a business plan and then develop, produce and market the product and direct the profits.  We are the only one receiving the children prior to entering the juvenile justice system.  Work and Learn is in its third year serving 23 youth, all of whom have stayed out of the system.

CO-OP Center provides THE service in town for basic reentry services for ex-offenders: legal identification, birth certificates, working papers, driver’s license and travel funds (bus tokens) for initial job searches.  Each client has their own case worker to guide them as they pursue options for education, training and additional community support services.

 Proyecto Nueva Vida (New Life Project) is a CO-OP project aimed at Hispanic ex-offender Bridgeport residents with HIV/AIDS and/or substance abuse issues.  Its 2006 funding by the CT Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services is the first time in recent history that the state funded a demonstration (5 year) project when the Federal funds ended.

 Project Learn is the only after-school academic tutorial program located in the Bridgeport Housing Authority’s Trumbull Gardens site, located there since 1969.  We are also the only academic program that partners, in this case with The Unique and Unified Program at Marina Village , with another agency providing an academic after school program in public housing.  Finally, we are the only model that partners with churches that enables them to deliver quality service in cost-effective manner (approximately $1,000 per pupil per school year = $5 day.)  We currently serve five sites in Bridgeport .

Bridge-Building is the only partnership known to us promoting Christian-Muslim-Jewish dialogue in greater Bridgeport .

 THE BEST

The State of Connecticut Department of Corrections audits all its agencies annually on a set of standards.   The most recent October, 2006 audit gave  CO-OP Center 100% compliance on over 25 standards covering client services, facility and financial management, and more.  The significance of this score is magnified when one considers that our clientele are “down and out,” not knowing where/when to take their next step (and so are desperate and in danger of re-entering the system).  Also, in December, 2005, the CO-OP Center received the Community Agency of the Year award from the Volunteers of Bridgeport Correctional Center for its contributions to their inmates.

 The Council’s financial and business integrity has caused us our Hunger Outreach to be named the fiduciary agent for FEMA hunger funds (approximately $60,000 per year).

 Bridge Building gets invited to facilitate serious, potentially explosive conversations on race, the most recent our work with the town of Stratford .  We are regularly consulted or asked for referrals on the basis of our reputation.

 Project Learn evidences a more compassionate and child-friendly environment compared to other after-school programs, based on anecdotal comparisons by teachers and parents and visits to other programs.  Our student-teacher ration is a low 8 to 1, and our students show objective improvement by improved grades, citizenship and attendance at school.  One of our goals is to develop additional objective evaluative criterion beyond grades and attendance and, where possible given the high mobility of this population, to track student performance after leaving the program.

 THE BIGGEST

Hunger Outreach is, by far, the biggest network of feeding programs in greater Bridgeport .  Through 34 providers in stationary kitchens, mobile kitchens and food pantries, over 1 million meals were delivered in 2006--2007.  While some providers could function without our assistance, others would certainly close due to lack of funds and/or accounting expertise.  Our connections and credibility allow us to work cooperatively with the providers and with other networks (The Connecticut Food Bank) and funders (Royal Bank of Scotland, General Electric, United Way) to feed hungry people.  We provide administrative costs, so all of the $66,000 of FEMA funds meets hunger needs.

The Janus  Center for Youth in Crisis is the only, and therefore the biggest, provider of temporary respite care in greater Bridgeport since moving in 2002 from a long-term residential program to a host home/respite care program.  We served 327 youth in 2006-2007.

The CO-OP Center provided services to more than 630 unduplicated clients in 2005-2006.  Over 500 of these clients received assistance obtaining one or more forms of legal identification; and 275 were assisted in securing employment.  This is, by far, the largest number of clients served by an agency working with this population in Bridgeport .  Our services were sought in collaboration with another agency working on an ex-offender re-entry project.  The quality and reputation of our program recently garnered an invitation to bid on services to train workers in lead abatement, many of whom will come from our client population.

 SO WHY GIVE TO THE COUNCIL OF CHURCHES?

A gift to The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport is an investment.  Lives reclaimed are of sacred worth.  These reflections focus on giving as an investment.

We are a “company” with a 63 year history of reliable performance.  We seek continuous improvement and new opportunities while maintaining quality in core programs and “spinning off” programs when they are ready to be self-sufficient.  “Work and Learn” is new.  The Marina Village site of “Project Learn” is new.  “Proyecto Nueva Vida,” while not new in its sixth year, was innovative at its inception and remains one of the few successful multiple-agency collaboratives.  Few remember that 3030 Park Avenue , senior residence housing, was an initiative of The Council; as was Greater Bridgeport Interfaith Action.

 We recently received an unqualified or “clean” audit by Venman and Company, with no comments regarding internal controls or processes. The Council improved the percentage of contribution to direct program services.  In 2005, approximately $0.80 of every dollar was directed to programs; during 2006 that increased to $0.83 of every dollar.  The Quick Ratio increased from .45 to 1.00 in 2005 to .98 to 1.00 during fiscal year 2006.

 An investment in The Council saves taxpayer dollars.  Bob Francis, Executive Director of the Regional Youth and Adult Substance Abuse Program (RYASAP) and member of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, observes one child placed in a Department of Children and Families residential facility costs $100,000 per year.  Placed in the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown , the cost is $1/2 million.

 The cost of a prisoner in a Connecticut jail is almost $30,000/year in direct costs.  If one factors in the cost of building additional correctional centers over the past decade, the cost per inmate almost doubles.  (In 2002, despite the crime rate falling by over 40% in the previous decade, Connecticut ’s prison population grew by 8%, the highest in the Northeast.  Currently, there are over 18,500 inmates in Connecticut prisons.)

The feeding sites we help fund through Hunger Outreach provide hot, nutritional  meals.  Because individual sites obtain funds and in-kind donations from other sources, an accurate overall per meal cost is difficult to calculate. A composite estimate is well under $1 per meal.

            Children and youth who do better in school are more likely to graduate.  Earning power also increases with diplomas.  According to the U.S. Department of Commerce statistics for 2004, a person without a high school diploma earns, on average, $26,593; while a high school graduate earns $36,700 per year.  An adult with some college education earns $43,275 while a college graduate earns and average of $65,442 per year. (http://www.unt.edu/pais/howtochoose/why.html)  These personal improvements better society by more competent workers and taxes paid; and through the knowledge of businesses acquired by some clients through our programs.

             Thank you for your interest in the work of The Council.

 Most sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Brian Schofield-Bodt

President and CEO