A handful of North Texas-based colleges and nonprofits received a total of $7.5 million in grants to help with a range of needs from counseling to helping students avoid homelessness.
The awards — announced by the Communities Foundation of Texas on Tuesday — aim to help more Texans stay on track toward obtaining the skills needed for the state’s workforce.
The groups include Aspire to Learn, AT LAST!, Café Momentum, The Commit Partnership, Paul Quinn College, Texas Woman’s University, the University of Texas at Arlington and Year Up United.
UTA sophomore Angel Jefferson said many students, such as himself, rely on school and community programs as they strive to get out of poverty.
The school’s Emerging Mavericks program gave him much-needed housing at the end of his freshman year, the public relations major said.
The initiative, which will receive $250,000 in support through the grants, helps students from the foster care system or those who have experienced homelessness.
“It really gave me hope,” Jefferson, 21, said. “That ability to be housed that summer really gave me, like, a sense of belonging … So I’m just happy to see that it’s available for other students.”
The schools and nonprofits collectively received $7.5 million in grants from the Communities Foundation of Texas on Tuesday.
About 60% of jobs in Texas will require education beyond a high school diploma by 2030, but less than 40% of Texans earn a degree or credential within six years of graduating high school, according to state data. Only 32% of workers have skills for those jobs, according to the Texas Workforce Commission’s labor market information.
This issue matters for North Texas, especially Dallas County, where two out of three young adults in Dallas County don’t currently earn a living wage.
Wayne White, the Communities Foundation of Texas president & CEO, said funding these schools and nonprofits is an important step toward addressing income inequality in North Texas.
The largest grant award — $3 million to the Commit Partnership — aims to get more high school students on track to college.
That includes expanding the Dallas County Promise program that helps students complete college through scholarships and advising; improving real-time data access across five Dallas-area school districts; and increasing the presence of Education is Freedom, which provides career planning and college readiness services to local high schools. (Commit is a supporter of the Future of North Texas initiative at The News.)
The urban boarding initiative AT LAST! received $1.5 million for the construction of its second residential facility, accommodating 82 more children.
The scholars-in-residence program provides free tutoring, food and education resources to students during the 17 hours they’re not in elementary school.
Randy Bowman, founder and CEO of At Last!, said the next building will be alongside the existing one in Oak Cliff.
“I am trying to solve a problem that I lived [with],” said Bowman, referencing how growing up, his own family needed help from others at times. “It’s hard every doggone day, but we do get results. …This is one of the things that I hope makes Dallas a place worth living in.”
The job-training nonprofit Year Up United received $1.38 million to support its work-based learning program. The group offers classroom instruction, internships in technical skills, support services and an educational stipend for young adults who ultimately receive a Year Up United certificate upon completion.
Café Momentum secured $500,000 to help the nonprofit restaurant as it moves to a new location in Old East Dallas.
For more than a decade, the restaurant provided workforce development for youth impacted by the criminal justice system. The new building is expected to help 20% more people with enhanced wraparound services.
Aspire to Learn received $500,000 to bolster its certifications for jobs such as a certified operators of powered industrial trucks, certified logistics technicians, and certified logistics associates. These jobs have annual salaries ranging from $40,000 to $50,000, according to the foundation.
Meanwhile, Paul Quinn College and Texas Woman’s University’s Dallas campus each received $250,000 to support planning efforts at those schools.
Paul Quinn aims to transform its campus into a self-sustaining, community-oriented “planned city” serving both students and the surrounding neighborhood. Texas Woman’s officials intend to grow the Dallas campus over the next decade into its own stand-alone school.
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.
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