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Local Mission Project: Bridgeton Municipal Alliance - Youth to Youth Program

What it is:

A non-profit community-based organization formed in March 1990 and linked with municipal alliances throughout Cumberland County and New Jersey.

Mission:

To provide the community of Bridgeton with opportunities to access activities and venues that are responsive to the "Biopsychosocial Disease Model" and address the following areas:

• Information and Education
• Personal Growth and Decision Making
• Community and Environmental Change
• Inclusion in drug free, bias free, and violence free lifestyles, activities, and networks as a way toward quality life and communal success; also, promotion of that lifestyle in the schools and community.

Success:

According to a member of the Governor's Council on Alcoholism and Drug Addiction and other reviewers, the BMA Y2Y program offers a model other alliances and programs in New Jersey should follow. By working with other community programs, agencies, and ventures (including the Bridgeton School District), the BMA has done far more than a municipal alliance alone could. Particular successes have been achieved in youth outreach and cross-age mentoring. The BMA serves residents as young as two years and as old as ninety-two. It also serves as a stable, supportive, challenging, nurturing, and empowering community for a wide variety of youth in Bridgeton.

Director:

Karen E. Barnett, CSW

Range:

The BMA Y2Y serves hundreds of youth in a continuously growing variety of programs and activities that, not only offer present alternatives to addictive or self-destructive choices, but also empower and equip youth and children in Bridgeton for lifelong productivity and service. The program fosters a self-respect that generates respect for other people, and it encourages that respect to cross barriers of ignorance and prejudice. It also provides opportunities to youth who predictably would not have them otherwise, and it enables the youth to draw out their own resources (and each other's) to take advantage of those opportunities.

Funding:

Primary funding comes through government grants which require matching funds from the community and, also, from the City of Bridgeton. The level of this primary funding has not increased over the life of the BMA Y2Y Program, and so community support is crucial for the program's development.

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