Santa Maria Awarded $50,000 for Dater4Kids

CINCINNATI, OH – Santa Maria Community Services is pleased to announce it has been awarded $50,000 from The Charles H. Dater Foundation, Inc. toward its Dater4Kids Program. Dater4Kids aims to engage Price Hill youth in community activities, including leadership development groups, educational field trips, sports team sponsorship, summer camp, and parental involvement. The grant will help support all of Santa Maria’s youth development services, which assist approximately 520 disadvantaged youth in Lower and East Price Hill ages 2-19 (and their families).

The Lower and East Price Hill neighborhoods struggle with high poverty and unemployment rates, crime, school drop-out rates, and increasing drug activity – particularly with heroin and other opiates. Santa Maria’s youth development services engage Price Hill youth in community activities to keep them off the streets, enhance their academic success, develop social skills (anger management, conflict resolution, etc.), promote community responsibility, and teach violence prevention tactics.

The Charles H. Dater Foundation, Inc. was founded in 1985 and makes grants to non-profit organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area to carry out projects that benefit children in the areas of arts/culture, education, healthcare, social services and other community needs.