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Projects Enhance Safety, Strengthen Reading Skills,
and Promote Educational Achievement
The GE Foundation recently awarded grants of $25,000 each to three AmeriCorps programs to support their work in neighborhood safety, early reading skills, and GED programs. The Foundation has awarded more than $1.5 million to AmeriCorps programs in recent years. The grants are designed to aid AmeriCorps efforts while encouraging GE volunteers to participate in the programs.
Organizations receiving the grants are:
Regional Youth/Adult Substance Abuse Project (RYASAP), Bridgeport, Conn., for its Safe Neighborhoods AmeriCorps Project (SNAP). With this project, AmeriCorps members and GE volunteers will perform free home safety assessments and installations of security enhancements in the homes of elderly, physically challenged, and other disadvantaged residents to provide residents-homeowners with crime prevention and home safety awareness information.
The Pulaski Board of Education, Somerset, Ky., for its Great Leaps program. AmeriCorps members run this program designed to develop fluent readers, by working with those whose reading skills are at least one grade level behind. The goal is to have all students reading at grade level before they exit the 3rd grade. GE Volunteers will serve as guest readers, assist with book fairs and other events.
The Urban Appalachian Council, Cincinnati, Ohio, for its Project ACE. Through this program, AmeriCorps members work in inner-city Cincinnati neighborhoods to tutor children, teens and adults to overcome low educational attainment, one of the major causes of poverty. The members and GE volunteers will also mobilize residents in volunteer projects that build leadership, optimism, and civic problem-solving skills.
"Once again the GE Foundation is helping local AmeriCorps programs meet critical needs and increase citizen involvement," said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, AmeriCorps' parent agency. "This is an outstanding example of public-private partnership that is at the heart of AmeriCorps."
"AmeriCorps members are working to solve real community problems, and they are making a difference," said Bob Corcoran, President of the GE Foundation. "This partnership leverages the resources of these great community agencies, local United Ways, and the AmeriCorps program to maximize the positive impact in the community."
The GE Foundation (www.gefoundation.com), the philanthropic organization of the General Electric Company, invests in improving educational opportunity and in strengthening community organizations in GE communities around the world. All told, GE, the GE Foundation and GE employees and retirees contributed over $120 million to community and educational institutions last year.
The Corporation for National and Community Service provides opportunities for community service through three programs: Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America. Working with national and community nonprofits, faith-based groups, schools, and local agencies, the Corporation engages Americans of all ages and backgrounds in meeting critical needs in education, the environment, public safety, homeland security, and other areas. The Corporation and its programs are part of USA Freedom Corps, a White House initiative to foster a culture of citizenship, service, and responsibility, and help all Americans answer the President's Call to Service. For more information, visit www.nationalservice.gov.
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