News Updates

ERIE, PA—In an unprecedented partnership between Erie County’s two largest grantmakers, The Erie Community Foundation’s Shaping Tomorrow Grants will grow this year by 100%. The Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority is matching The Foundation’s $500,000 investment, increasing the 2015 funding stream to $1 million.

Shaping Tomorrow Grants support multi-year, evidence-based, collaborative projects with a high probability of sustainable community change as measured by Erie Vital Signs. Erie Vital Signs is a leadership initiative of The Foundation, in partnership with the Erie Regional Institute of Economics, and tracks indicators that reflect and measure our county’s well-being. (www.ErieVitalSigns.org)

Foundation President Mike Batchelor said, “We are grateful to ECGRA for all the work they do in the community and are pleased to partner with them in order to assemble the resources needed to more effectively address priority projects with systemic changes.”

The Foundation and ECGRA have worked together in the past to fund human services efforts through The Foundation’s Helping Today Grants, forge the Erie Summer Jobs and More pilot program, and establish the Erie County Lead Assets endowment fund created by ECGRA and held in trust at The Foundation. Today’s $1 million announcement marks the organizations’ largest grant collaboration and the first time a grantmaker has matched The Foundation’s Shaping Tomorrow Grants.

ECGRA Executive Director Perry Wood said, “Our role as an impact investor is not only to create grant streams that effect short- and long-term change in Erie County, but to support best practices in funding. The Erie Community Foundation has a long history of making sound investments. The ECGCRA board and staff is confident that our collaborations with them will reap positive outcomes for Erie residents.”

At a 1:30 p.m. reception today at the H.O Hirt Auditorium, 160 East Front Street, Erie, The Foundation and ECGRA announced their joint investment in four Shaping Tomorrow projects focused on education for youth and adults, healthcare for underserved neighborhoods, and character development for inner-city students:

$400,000 to Erie’s Public Schools for Tech After Hours, a workforce development program that will provide in-demand job training and placement to out-of-school youth and displaced adult workers;

$250,000 to Gannon University for GO College, which prepares Strong Vincent and East high school students to enter a post-secondary institution or branch of the military;

$200,000 to Primary Health Network to expand school and neighborhood health centers to two new facilities; and

$150,000 to All About Character, Inc., a 37-week character-education curriculum taught in Erie city schools by Pennsylvania State Troopers and Erie City Police Officers.

The $500,000 in funding aligns with ECGRA’s impact area education and youth, created in 2014 upon the pilot launch of Summer Jobs and More.

Wood added, “Over the past two years, we’ve conducted significant research on education and youth and its impact on the economy. The unemployment rate for 16-24-year-olds is the highest it’s been since the Great Depression. How can we expect our young men and women to transition smoothly into adulthood when they lack the sense of purpose a career provides? And how can they attain a good job without an education, training, and physical and emotional health? The answer is simple: They can’t.”

Grants totaling $400,000 will seed a job training and placement program new to Erie County: Erie’s Public Schools’ Tech After Hours will target 18-24-year-old high school graduates and offer adult students affordable, hands-on training in healthcare, machining and welding technology, and construction trades. Upon certification, students will be placed in open jobs through partnerships with employers countywide. The evening, weekend, and summer program will capitalize on the innovative facility and programming of Central Career & Technical High School and anticipates training students as early as January 2016. Tech After Hours will also offer remediation and a diploma program for out-of-school youth and adults and plans to open its doors to adult students in January 2016.

Erie’s Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Jay Badams said, “The business community has been asking for a skills-trained workforce for many years. Thanks to the support of The Foundation and ECGRA and to the creativity and passion of Central Tech administrators and teachers, our Tech After Hours program will have the capacity to educate and mentor 200 students per year by its third year of operation. And thanks to our employer partners, those students will have access to jobs across Erie County.”

A total of $600,000 of today’s funding will be used to expand and support essential programs currently in operation. Over the next three years, Primary Health Network will expand their school and neighborhood health center model to two new sites to provide quality health care to a larger segment of Erie’s impoverished population. All About Character will implement their curriculum into eight Erie city schools, training and mentoring as many as 22,000 3rd-8th-graders over three years. GO College’s full-time professionals and part-time student mentors will continue to help more than 1,700 Strong Vincent and East high school 9th-12th graders per year with SAT/ACT prep, career/college exploration, application and financial aid completion, and social and emotional support.