Grantee awards: soccer mentorship, prevention workshops and cessation programs funded by settlement proceeds

Committee staff walked through prior grant recipients and their program designs, metrics and reported outputs. "The 3 awardees were one. The Elite Soccer Development Academy for $500,000 which was awarded to expand their kicking like into gear," Nicole Rodriguez Hernandez read from the packet, describing a mentorship-plus-sports model. Staff also described Identity Inc.’s substance misuse prevention initiative and Tree of Hope Association’s smoking cessation intervention, noting the grants targeted youth ages 11–21 with priority for Black and Latino youth in high-impact ZIP codes.

Grantee reporting was mixed: staff said two grantees reported strong performance and infrastructure gains while one experienced delays tied to staffing. Don Williams, health promotion manager, summarized mid-cycle outputs: by the third quarter Identity reported training 12 peer educators and the grantees combined reported reaching roughly 800–900 youth and referring about 42 young people for assessment or treatment.