Community Bridges - Maryland

Community Bridges empowers girls from diverse backgrounds to become exceptional students, positive leaders and healthy young women. Founded in 1997 as a youth development organization committed to meeting the needs of underserved low-income and immigrant youth in the Long Branch community of East Silver Spring, in 1998 CB launched Jump Start Girls! Adelante Niñas!, a leadership and empowerment program for middle school girls. We have since then expanded our programming to include elementary and high school programming and as recently as 2010, added a two-generation approach through including the girls’ families in the development. The CB Girls program is a leadership development, advocacy, and youth development initiative for adolescent girls, teens and young women between the ages of 9-18 years old in grades 4-12. The program provides opportunities for girls and young women to explore their identity (most are from immigrant backgrounds), develop their self-esteem, build character, learn tools strategies for overcoming adversity and barriers, build their leadership capacity and become college and/or career ready. Girls whom enroll in the program are from households where poverty is a cycle and come out of the program breaking their cycle of poverty through attending college and becoming job ready. Programs: CB Girls- a leadership and positive youth development, advocacy, and college and career planning initiative for at-risk adolescent girls, teens and young women between the ages of 9-18 years old in grades 4-12. CB Family Insititute-a program designed to provide parents and/or guardians skills, competencies and social capital that will assist their children in breaking the cycle of poverty. CB Mentoring-a program for women ages 25+ interested in mentoring young girls. CB College and Career-a program specifically for junior and senior girls preparing them with toolkits and resources for successful application, enrollment and beyond.