Rural Outreach Center Receives $200,000 Grant

The Rural Outreach Center (ROC) in East Aurora recently received a $200,000 grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. 

With this grant, the ROC will provide evidence-based programming to children and offer support to families to ensure that transportation and other barriers do not hinder access to care. Further, this funding supports the ROC as it develops a comprehensive package to help others replicate its model of care in other areas in New York State. 

In their grant application titled “The Rural Outreach Center – Eliminating Rural Poverty & Healing from Trauma,” the ROC emphasized how its model of empowerment transforms the lives of families in general, but children in particular. According to Executive Director Dr. Frank Cerny, the ROC has a singular goal: to eliminate poverty in rural southern Western New York. 

“There are over 40,000 people in poverty in the rural zip codes from which most of our participants come,” Cerny said in a news release. “But rural poverty is often called the invisible poverty because it is hidden and dispersed across a wide geographic area, making it difficult to provide services, thereby exacerbating the poverty. 

“This grant will enhance the ROC’s ability to provide much-needed services to help our participants reach their goals. Services range from one-on-one mentoring by volunteers, counseling, career development and family services to transitional housing and transportation procurement. Currently, the ROC has over 150 participant individuals and families and almost 100 children engaged in the process of empowerment to self-sufficiency.” 

For more information on the Rural Outreach Center, located at 730 Olean Road, visit theroc.co or call 716-240-2220.