In just short of three weeks, San Francisco public school students will leave their classrooms for the last time this school year. Many of them will flock to summer camps — but for some organizations taking the baton, it is set to be a tough summer run.
Horizons, FACES SF, Glide, Buena Vista Child Care and Mariposa Kids — five nonprofits that provide extracurricular and summer programming for children in kindergarten through eighth grade — are among the applicants that failed to receive the full funding they requested from the Department of Children, Youth and their Families for the 2024 to 2029 funding cycle.
Budget cuts have reduced the department’s budget by $12 million annually, the department says, and together the summer programs are trying to fundraise on their own.
“It’s a really big blow to us,” said Amy Anderson, the executive director of Horizons, which works with three Mission schools to provide after-school and summer activities to children, including literacy support, swimming lessons and field trips. These are free of charge to some 150 students during the summer.
The education nonprofit has relied on city funding for more than 40 percent of its budget over the last five years, Anderson said. Those dollars help to develop programming and keep it accessible to low-income families. This year, the organization requested some $639,000 and received nothing. Last year it received $430,000.
The Department of Children, Youth and Families said it is all part of some $24 million in cuts they are facing over the next two years. After some delay — the awards were expected to be announced in March — the department on April 15 revealed how it will dole out its $92 million annual grant budget to some 140 agencies. Its grants this year are $2 million less than last year.
Since then, Horizons and some other organizations have been scrambling to find alternative funds and rejigger their budgets.
“We’re being squeezed on all sides,” said Anderson. The shortfall also puts pressure on a preexisting challenge: Individual fundraising, which has gone down since the pandemic, she added.
“We are having to re-envision what it means to serve children and youth,” said Ryan Hazelton, the executive director of Mariposa Kids, which like Horizons provides after-school and summer programming for students in the Mission. “It’s tough,” he added.
While Mariposa Kids has not previously relied on city funding, Hazelton said the organization had hoped to receive some to offset the costs of their summer camp for some families. Their summer program costs parents $550 per week for each child, plus $100 for before and aftercare. A single adult earning minimum wages in San Francisco earns $722.80 a week, and the median income for a family of four is $2,882 a week.
At least 22 percent of the families Mariposa Kids serves fall under the median income, according to Hazelton. He said he continues to receive requests for financial help, which they have a limited ability to give. “It’s gut-wrenching,” he said.
Among the programs facing budget shortfalls are some which target programming to poorer families. Glide, a social justice nonprofit, runs a summer program in the Tenderloin and this next cycle will receive 30 percent less in funding from the city.
Because of that, it will only be able to open its program to some 50 students instead of 75, and will hire fewer teaching assistants, according to Naeemah Charles, a senior director at the nonprofit.
“We’re really serving families that have the highest need,” said Charles. Many of the families in the program are lower-income: Among 12 parents who disclosed their income in a survey to Glide, the average take home was $2,008 a month; some five percent of the children enrolled are homeless.
With the cuts, said Charles, her organization is serving fewer families. That means more parents who must take care of their children this summer, “which means they will be economically impacted,” she adds, “because they aren’t able to work.”
While each nonprofit was competing for funding from the same pot, they have now teamed up in an effort to raise funds privately — and as quickly as possible. Horizons, Mariposa Kids, Glide, Buena Vista Child Care and FACES SF are collectively seeking to raise $848,000, enough to keep their programs going for this summer.
“We’re determined to serve these kids,” said Hazelton. “We know that working together, our chances of success are far better than us working separately.”
I have gone from sad to mad over these deficits. Reading about one or two made me sad, but in the past month I have read about a dozen and more programs in jeopardy that affect kids in San Francisco. $12 million a year is a lot of money for these organizations. But it’s less than the interest on the interest for billionaires. I bring this up because I just read that a great institution in Golden Gate Park has an $8+ million deficit this year and must fire younger researchers and technicians. Yet billionaires sit on its board. I’m beginning to believe Bernie and Elizabeth when they rant that our public services are impoverished because billionaires and giant corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Yet those billionaires and corporations benefit from everything our public sector provides for including the education, health, safety, transportation, and welfare of their workers.
When a city of such enormous wealth – how many billionaires? – fails to adequately fund kids summer programs then ask yourself: which candidates for Mayor and Board of Supes will change priorities at City Hall? Hint, it ain’t the so-called mods backed by billionaires, but rather Aaron Peskin and Sup candidates like Chan, Preston and Fielder…
Do not worry. We fund a non profit run by a cop who on city time plans vacations to Kenya .I’m sure all the voters approve of this.
PS: And I’m no longer grateful when a billionaire or corporation decides to bestow a grant on some institution or needy program.
Good ol’ DCYF and Maria Su cutting off the people actually doing the work, and prioritizing the ones who don’t. Every department at City Hall and agency it funds, needs a deep audit to reveal the extensive waste in the City budget.