PNC Foundation presents grant to United Way

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The PNC Foundation today presented a $25,000 grant to help support the United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley’s Success by 6 program.

During summer 2010, with financial support from the local United Way and PNC’s donation, the Success by 6 initiative helped prepare more than 300 Mahoning Valley students to enter kindergarten.

PNC’s donation will enable the program to continue this summer and also expand from 14 schools in Mahoning and Trumbull counties to an additional school in Boardman.

The grant was made by PNC in support of its Grow Up Great program, a 10-year, $100 million bilingual initiative to improve early childhood education, said Theodore M. Schmidt, PNC regional president for Youngstown.

“At PNC, we have made a commitment to kindergarten-readiness programs, and the overwhelmingly positive results of Success by 6 demonstrate the effectiveness of the program. To date, we have provided more than $50,000 of PNC Foundation grants for children in the Mahoning Valley,” he said.

Success by 6 is a framework developed by the United Way to provide children with the resources and education to prepare them to enter kindergarten, said Bob Hannon, president of the United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley.

The four-week program is designed to improve the language, social and emotional development, and cognitive and physical skills of participating children.

Its focused instruction also is designed to familiarize the children with the physical structure and routines of the classroom and develop relationships with teachers and other children, Hannon said.

Of the 324 children who completed last year’s program, 280 or 86 percent of the participants increased their test scores overall by 12 points, officials said.