May 26, 2009
Bank of America Charitable Foundation Donates $25,000 to Providence Boys & Girls Clubs’ Project Learn Program
Program Gives Students Educational Assistance
Photo Caption: William F. Hatfield, President of Bank of America Rhode Island, presents a check for $25,000 to children at the Boys & Girls Club of Providence.
PROVIDENCE – The Bank of America Charitable Foundation donated $25,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Providence to support its “Project Learn” program, providing students with homework help, computer instruction, educational enhancements, and much more.
“Bank of America is proud to support the Boys & Girls Clubs and Project Learn,” said William F. Hatfield, President of Bank of America Rhode Island. “The Boys & Girls Clubs are instrumental in teaching our youth to become strong, educated, self-sufficient adults. The Clubs’ support of these students is vital to helping our children grow into responsible members of our community.”
Project Learn reinforces and enhances the skills and knowledge young people learn at school during the hours they spend at the Club. This comprehensive program strategy is based on Dr. Reginald Clark’s research showing that students do much better in school when they spend their non-school hours engaged in fun, but academically beneficial, activities.
Through Project Learn, Club staff use all the areas and programs in the Club to create opportunities for these high-yield learning activities, which include leisure reading, writing activities, discussions with knowledgeable adults, helping others, homework help and tutoring and games like Scrabble that develop young people’s cognitive skills.
According to COO Nicole Dufresne, “We are so grateful to Bank of America because they not only provide us with needed financial resources for important programs like Project Learn, but also support us through their volunteer efforts of facility improvement projects, by serving on committees, and working directly with our kids in the Clubs.”
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Providence is a partner in Bank of America’s Neighborhood Excellence Initiative (NEI), providing an eight-week paid internship to five Student Leaders selected by a panel of judges in the early spring. This is the second year the NEI program has been held in Rhode Island.
Bank of America Corporate Philanthropy
Building on a long-standing tradition of investing in the communities it serves, Bank of America is in its fourth year of achieving an unprecedented 10-year goal to donate $1.5 billion to nonprofit organizations engaged in improving the health and vitality of their neighborhoods. Funded by Bank of America, the Bank of America Charitable Foundation will give more than $225 million in 2008, making the bank the most generous financial institution in the world and the second largest donor of all U.S. corporations in cash contributions. Bank of America approaches giving through a national strategy called "neighborhood excellence" under which it works with local leaders to identify and meet the most pressing needs of individual communities. Through Team Bank of America, bank associate volunteers contributed more than 650,000 hours in 2007 to enhance the quality of life in their communities nationwide. For more information about Bank of America Corporate Philanthropy, please visit www.bankofamerica.com/foundation.
About the Boys & Girls Club
The mission of the Boys & Girls Club of Providence is “to enable and inspire children and youth, especially those from diverse or difficult circumstances, to reach their full potential as productive, responsible, and healthy members of their community, the State of Rhode Island, and the nation.” For nearly 140 years, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Providence have provided safe and fun environment for children and youth in the neighborhoods where kids live. The Boys & Girls Club provides services through professionally trained full-time and part-time staff in facilities in neighborhoods where kids live. The Clubs are open afternoons, evenings, and weekends, times of the day when kids need them most. The Club ensures affordability for its members who pay dues of $1.50 per month. The Club provides programs and activities based upon a nationally recognized youth development strategy.