Foundation Grants to Support Youth Opportunity Center

EVERETT, Wash. -- Center for Career Alternatives (CCA) today announced that it has received a three-year, $210,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund the expansion of a program providing education and employment services for disadvantaged youth.  A one-time grant of $10,000 from the Verizon Foundation will also help fund the expansion project.

The grants will allow CCA to establish a Youth Opportunity Center in central Everett and to expand its Career Readiness Program for youth who lack high school diplomas. 

“Last year, the Career Readiness Program served over 120 dropout youth,” said CCA’s Executive Director, Alan Sugiyama.  “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant will allow the agency to hire an additional teacher and add an evening class so that more youth can be served in 2003 and beyond.”

The Career Readiness Program helps dropout youth, aged 16 to 21, to improve their academic skills, attain GED certificates, and obtain employment or post-secondary education.  The need for these services has increased dramatically in recent years as the number of youth dropping out of school has increased, and as a number of other programs have closed their doors.

In the 2000-01 school year, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction was able to identify almost 1,500 youth who dropped out of Snohomish County schools, and the status of another 1,600 was listed as unknown.  Another 1,100 youth who reached twelfth grade failed to graduate.

In a study funded by the Gates Foundation, Jay P. Greene, Ph. D., of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, found that only 67% of all Washington state public high school students from the class of 2001 graduated from high school.  The Everett Public Schools had one of the lowest completion rates of all districts cited in the study at 51%.

The Youth Opportunity Center will provide “one stop” access for youth needing a variety of education, employment and social services.  In addition to the expanded Career Readiness Program, the Center will feature a new job search center for youth and on-site access to the services of other youth-serving agencies, including substance abuse counseling and independent living services for youth in foster care.

The Youth Opportunity Center will open in January, and CCA will hold an Open House and Grand Opening to celebrate the establishment of the Center in early 2003.

On the Internet:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, www.gatesfoundation.org
Center for Career Alternatives, www.CenterforCareerAlternatives.org