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Citi Foundation supports Junior Achievement of DE Employability Project

Courtesy of Junior Achievement

Junior Achievement of Delaware is partnering with the Citi Foundation’s Pathways to Progress Youth Workforce Fund to provide work-based learning opportunities to underserved students.

 

The Pathways to Progress Initiative serves vulnerable youth in New Castle County.

“For Junior Achievement of Delaware it’s really just continuing the work that we’ve been up to since 1956. Amd globally as an organization since 1919 - we’re celebrating a centennial this year,” said Rob Eppes - Junior Achievement of Delaware president.

 

And he pinpoints what this latest round of funding allows the organization to do, “Is to focus on some small cohorts of populations that we already serve. But rather than having perhaps some -  one or two experiences with these groups of students over the course of an academic year, we are able to serve them with multiple Junior Achievement interventions.” 

Eppes says students with developmental disabilities, incarcerated students and students from low-income family situations participate in a series of volunteer-led initiatives ranging from career fairs, and job shadowing, to running their own small businesses. 

The $100,000 grant includes funding for paid internships and part-time employment at Junior Achievement for 42 young people, ages 16-21.  Those positions are awarded on a competitive basis.

 

Eppes notes that 165 students have been served in point-of-entry experiences thus far, including students with Autism enrolled in Junior Achievement’s Brennen Immersion & Business Programs and students at the New Castle County Detention Center.

 

Junior Achievement of Delaware serves over 17,000 local students in kindergarten through high school graduation with volunteer-led curriculum, simulations and experiences designed to help them reach their potential.

 
 

Kelli Steele has over 30 years of experience covering news in Delaware, Baltimore, Winchester, Virginia, Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California.