Chester County Futures Gets $25K Grant

The following release was submitted by Chester County Futures.

Chester County Futures today announced a $25,000 grant from the AT&T Foundation aimed at reducing dropout rates in the county and helping local students and stay in school.

As part of the effort, AT&T employees in the area also will mentor Chester County students as part of the AT&T Aspire Mentoring Academy, the key community engagement program of AT&T's $350 million investment in Aspire, focused on high school success leading to college and career readiness. AT&T employees are engaging in their communities and providing one million hours of mentoring to students nationwide who at risk of dropping out of high school.

“AT&T is thrilled to work with Chester County Futures in our efforts to improve high school graduation rates among at-risk students and to prepare the next generation workforce,” says David Kerr, Regional Vice President of External Affairs in Pennsylvania. “Our employees are excited to engage and interact with Futures’ students as mentors and classroom presenters. The unique mentoring bond that is formed is a lasting and impactful one and plays an integral role in keeping students in school.”

Chester County Futures’ One-to-One Mentoring Program matches dedicated adults with at-risk students early in their high school career. Often these students need the guidance of an extra adult or the consistency of a mentoring relationship to keep them on track to graduate. Though the mentor-mentee relationship only requires a two-year commitment, many of these relationships continue well after the student graduates from high school and enters college. As the number of students served continually increases, Chester County Futures is always searching for new partnerships to provide mentorships to current and future students.

“The opportunity to collaborate with AT&T was a no-brainer for us. We are both working towards the same goal of boosting low-income students so that they can graduate from high school and attend college. Both organizations emphasize mentoring as a tool to keep them on that track,” says Maria McDonald, Director of Development for Chester County Futures. “Our One-to-One Mentors are the cornerstone to our success.”

AT&T Aspire is one of the largest corporate commitments focused on helping more students graduate from high school ready for college and careers.  Last year, AT&T announced an additional quarter-billion-dollar expansion to the program, bringing the total commitment to $350 million since the program was launched in 2008.