Future Focused Education

Youth Civic Infrastructure (YCI) Grant

Nacimiento Community Foundation received a one-year Future Focused Education Youth Civic Infrastructure Fund Exploration Grant in the amount of $25,000 in 2025-2026.

Youth Civic Infrastructure (YCI) grants are awarded to nonprofit organizations that desire to integrate young people and schools more directly into their existing work. Students, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and funders work collaboratively to build curriculum, internships, and capstone projects that actively work to improve the communities in which the students live.

Nacimiento Community Foundation worked directly with the Cuba Independent School District (CISD) in the program area of Community Healing & Development to expand our local food pantry capacity and increase awareness of the food pantry in our area communities.  In addition, the collaboration led to the development of a system to store and provide emergency distribution of surplus pantry food for both pantries at the CISD Cuba Cares facility.

The YCIF funded project is directly helping the food bank with fiscal and youth support of six dedicated interns, as well as providing a vehicle for us to obtain a bigger picture of the role and importance of food pantries in our community. As an overall result of this exploratory grant, it feels like we’ve identified a win-win solution for helping develop our students' academic and communication skills and helping meet the needs of our community.