Toby Sells - The Commercial Appeal -

Youth Villages has received a $42 million challenge grant from The Day Foundation to expand the organization’s program that helps older foster children transition to adulthood.

The grant is the single-largest grant ever given to the Memphis non-profit organization. The Day Foundation’s founder and namesake, Clarence Day, was a longtime Youth Villages supporter and had given more than $14 million to the organization before his 2009 death.

The transitional living program the new funds will support will serve 1,452 young adults this year with 335 in West Tennessee and the rest in seven other states. Each year nearly 30,000 children will turn 18 and be released from state custody and be left on their own to make their way as an adult.

The matching funds will allow Youth Villages to serve about 9,000 in the next five years.

“Clarence Day cared deeply about the fate of these often-forgotten youth and he was instrumental in establishing and maintaining Youth Villages’ (transitional living) program to help them,” said The Day Foundation trustees in a statement.

The grant will be paid out over five years and is temporarily restricted and can be accessed when Youth Villages raises matching money from states or private donors.

The grant will also fund some capital improvement projects and five-year growth plan to serve more children and families in the Mid-South and the country.

Learn more about the project at youthvillages.wordpress.com.