Pa. is spending $11 million to expand after-school programs, from Philly to Downingtown
Programs in Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties are getting funds through the Pa. Commission on Crime and Delinquency.
Girls’ running groups in Philadelphia. A homework club in Lower Merion. Science, technology, engineering, and math enrichment in Lansdale, Souderton, and Ambler.
Those programs and more will be funded over the next two years thanks to $11 million in state grants announced Thursday by Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis.
“The number one cause of death for young people in America isn’t cancer or car accidents — it’s guns,” Davis said in a statement. “When we invest in afterschool programs, we’re being smart about safety, and we’re saving lives.”
The money, provided by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, aims to expand after-school and summer opportunities for students with disadvantages including poverty, limited English proficiency, academic struggles, and more. State Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler (D., Philadelphia), cochair of the House Afterschool Caucus, said the “first-of-its-kind” funding would “make it possible to bring kids off waitlists and into afterschool programs, retain highly-trained professionals, and invest in our collective future.”
Speaking at a news conference Thursday at Boys & Girls Clubs of Philadelphia’s Northeast Frankford Club, Davis — who grew up going to a Boys & Girls Club in Western Pennsylvania — said there was “huge” unmet demand for after-school programming. The state received almost 300 applications for the grants, Davis said, with funding requests totaling $65 million, almost six times what was allocated in the state budget.
The following programs in Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties will receive funding:
Arts Holding Hands and Hearts Inc. in Chester County: $141,000 for an expansion of trauma-informed restorative arts and mindfulness programming for 630 at-risk youth “involved in, impacted by, or at risk of entering the juvenile justice system in Chester County.”
After School Activities Partners in Philadelphia: $250,000 to support chess, debate, drama, and Scrabble programs. ASAP serves 5,000 youth in grades K-12 in schools, libraries, and recreation centers, with an emphasis on neighborhood schools and in communities most affected by gun violence.
Chester County Economic Development Foundation in Chester County: $218,135 for the RISE — Readiness Increases Skills & Employability — project, designed to boost career readiness for 1,600 students at Coatesville Area High School.
Chester Education Foundation in Delaware County: $250,000 for workforce development and academic enrichment programs for students in the Chester Upland School District aimed at increasing school engagement and achievement and positive relationships.
Downingtown Community Education Foundation in Chester County: $100,000 for after-school and summer programming that will support academic support, student engagement, and parent involvement.
ESF Dream Camp Foundation in Philadelphia: $250,000 to expand after-school and summer violence-prevention programs, offering mentoring, artistic and athletic enrichment, leadership training, and academic support.
Girls First in Montgomery County: $216,920 to boost arts-based after-school programs for girls age 5 through 9 in Norristown.
Girls on the Run Philadelphia: $150,000 to bring sports-based programming — both social-emotional learning and running — to 1,050 girls in third through eighth grade.
Highway Mission Tabernacle in Philadelphia: $250,000 to grow its performing arts programs in the Tioga-Nicetown section of North Philadelphia.
Neighbors Helping Neighbors on the Main Line in Montgomery County: $130,930 to provide tutoring, homework help, field trips, mentoring, therapeutic sessions, and an “empowerment camp” to underrepresented students in Lower Merion.
North Penn Valley Boys & Girls Club in Montgomery County: $250,000 to support Project Learn, its free after-school program, which gives children ages 6 through 13 daily homework help, character lessons, science, technology, engineering, and math activities and recreational opportunities at locations in Lansdale, Souderton, and Ambler.
Philadelphia Education Fund in Philadelphia: $250,000 for Spark Philadelphia, an after-school program for seventh and eighth graders. The funds will support new middle school programs, targeting an “opportunity gap” for Philadelphia students via an early introduction to college and career concepts.
School District of the Borough of Morrisville in Bucks County: $250,000 for homework help, tutoring, credit recovery, science, technology, engineering, arts and math activities, and other enrichment at Morrisville Middle and High School.
Niche Clinic in Philadelphia: $248,000 for internships for youth who have encountered the justice system. Niche gives students paid work placements and financial education in an effort to get them to graduation and into a full-time job or postsecondary education.
Parkesburg Point Youth Center, Inc. in Chester County: $250,000 for expanding an after-school program focusing on academic enrichment, health, nutrition, sports, mentorship, art, leadership development, career readiness, and crisis support.
Tree House Books in Philadelphia: $125,000 for after-school and summer programs to boost literacy in North Central Philadelphia.
University City Sciences Center in Philadelphia: $249,884 for the FirstHand program in West Philadelphia, giving students experience in science, technology, engineering, and math careers via after-school and summer programming.
In addition, two statewide organizations are getting larger grants — the Pennsylvania Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs, including clubs in Philadelphia and Delaware Counties, was awarded $1.5 million, and the Pennsylvania State Alliance of YMCAs, including those in Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties, is also getting $1.5 million.
The money is a real boost for the organizations.
Nicole Wyglendowski, a Philadelphia teacher who’s a coach of the Girls on the Run Club at Steel Elementary in Nicetown, said the program has been “wonderful” for the girls in third, fourth, and fifth grade who participate.
The running is meaningful, but perhaps even more, her Girls on the Run students respond to the character education — lessons they don’t get anywhere else in school, Wyglendowski said.
“There’s being on a team, building and growing with your teammates, but there’s also coping skills and strategies,” said Wyglendowski. “It changes the climate of the school day, changes their entire experience, and I’ve seen it happen time and again.”