Wean Foundation awards $140K in community investment grants

Staff report

WARREN

The board of directors of The Raymond John Wean Foundation awarded grants totaling nearly $140,000 for programs seeking to promote financial stability, create better opportunities for academic success and support the collaborative efforts of public and private partnerships.

The East Side Organizing Project was granted $30,000 in support of its Senior Financial Empowerment Initiative, which offers financial workshops and outreach for low- to moderate-income senior citizens.

Through an integrated suite of financial education and capabilities programs, its goal is to increase the stability of the Mahoning Valley’s growing senior population (age 55 or older) toward obtaining a more secure financial future, according to a Wean news release.

Warren City School District received $25,000 to increase the leadership capacity of its building principals, improve the teaching and learning of the district’s youngest learners and establish a system of meaningful data collection as it relates to early learning and leadership.

To do so, the district will engage the CAYL Institute to facilitate its Accelerating Change: Learning for High Quality Early Learning training program.

The Center for Student Progress Summer Bridge program at Youngstown State University was awarded $20,000 over two years to provide information and support to minority students so that they can successfully progress throughout college and ultimately become graduates.

The one-week intensive orientation familiarizes participants with academic and social experiences most often encountered by first-year students.

The Wean directors also awarded a shared $64,910 allotment for the second year of We Are Warren, a collaborative initiative created to coordinate and support efforts regarding youth development and family engagement in the community.

Warren school district will work closely with Eastern Ohio Education Partnership to develop a fully functioning portal site that identifies nonprofits in the city that are performing work related to the educational pipeline, from preschool to postsecondary, Wean officials said.

Inspiring Minds, in support of We Are Warren, will partner with the school district to expand programming and opportunities for Warren students in the after-school setting.