The Central New York Community Foundation has named Booker T. Washington Community Center the winner of a $75,000 participatory budgeting grant to support increased health, skills and enrichment among youth in Cayuga County. The winning proposal was selected through a public vote held Thursday, October 1, as part of the Community Foundation’s participatory budgeting initiative celebrating its upcoming centennial.
Voting took place online throughout the day and in person during a live community celebration held at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn. Nearly 900 votes were cast.
The winning grant will be used to create a countywide teen resource program.
“We are deeply honored and grateful to receive this grant from the Community Foundation,” said Denise Farrington, executive director of Booker T. Washington Community Center. “This is an investment in the people and families we serve, and it will help us to continue creating opportunities, strengthening our community, and making a meaningful difference in the lives of those we serve.”
The program will be designed to give young people a consistent place to turn for help navigating health, housing, financial, educational and career needs. A dedicated Teen Resource Navigator will work individually with teens to identify their needs, connect them with appropriate services, arrange transportation and follow up to help ensure they receive support. Services will be available in several settings throughout the community, and a Teen Advisory Council will help identify barriers, shape activities and recommend improvements to the program.
Thursday’s vote marked the culmination of a month-long community engagement process that invited Cayuga County residents to help determine how funding should be invested locally. During two participatory budgeting sessions held in early September, residents and volunteers worked together to identify pressing community challenges and develop project ideas that would best support local needs. Participants identified increasing overall health, skills and enrichment among youth in Cayuga County as the focus area for funding.
“This process is about more than funding a project; it’s about building trust and making sure community voices guide community investment,” said Qiana Williams, senior program officer at the Community Foundation. “Residents shared what matters most to them, nonprofits stepped forward with ideas and now the decision belongs to the community.”
The ballot also included proposals submitted by Cayuga Counseling Services and Confidential Help for Alcohol and Drugs, Inc. Participating nonprofit organizations worked closely with Community Foundation staff to refine their ideas and ensure proposals reflected community input gathered during the participatory budgeting sessions.
“We are also grateful to the other organizations that were considered for this funding,” said Farrington. “The work being done by organizations throughout our community is important, and we are proud to be part of a network of agencies working to make Cayuga County stronger. We thank the Community Foundation for recognizing the importance of this work and for placing its trust in Booker T. Washington Community Center.”
The Cayuga County initiative is the fourth of five participatory budgeting projects the Community Foundation will host across its service area as part of its two-year centennial celebration leading up to 2027. Collectively, the initiatives will distribute $500,000 in funding through projects selected directly by residents. Participatory budgeting projects have already been completed in Oswego, Cortland and Madison counties, with the final project planned for Onondaga County in 2027.
Participatory budgeting is a community engagement process in which residents help decide how funding is allocated through a structured process of community need identification, prioritization and voting. In partnership with residents, nonprofits and grassroots organizations, participants identify priorities, co-design solutions and ultimately select the project they believe will best address a community need.
To learn more about the Community Foundation’s participatory budgeting initiative, visit cnycf.org/cayugapb.
The Central New York Community Foundation is a public charity that turns community dollars into community change. Established in 1927, it receives contributions from donors, manages them to grow over time and then distributes funding to address the region’s greatest needs. The foundation has invested more than $350 million in community projects that benefit Central New York. It also serves as a civic leader, convener and sponsor of strategic initiatives that foster a thriving and equitable region and address the most critical issues of our time.
