$100K Key Bank Award Will Allow Youth Conservation Group To Grow

YONKERS, NY — A group that is helping a new generation to thrive and grow a sustainable world to live in just got a major financial boost that will help expand those efforts.

Groundwork Hudson Valley and KeyBank announced a two-year $100,000 grant from the KeyBank Foundation, the bank’s charitable non-profit, to support the expansion of Groundwork’s Youth Leadership and Sustainability Education Programs.

See Also: Hudson Valley On The Water: The Science Barge On The River

The funding will provide out-of-school education for Yonkers Public School K-6 students to visit the Science Barge, a floating sustainability education center, to supplement the school system’s science curricula. The funding will also support the award-winning Green Team, a program that provides paid part-time jobs to Yonkers Public High School students to build their leadership skills and gain hands-on skills in environmental conservation, climate risk mitigation, and community engagement.

"We at Groundwork Hudson Valley are immensely grateful for partners like KeyBank who are committed to creating positive and lasting change and who provide resources to organizations like ours to propel our mission forward for Yonkers youth," Groundwork Hudson Valley Executive Director Oded Holzinger said. "This partnership with the KeyBank Foundation exemplifies how we can come together to lay the groundwork and empower our youth to have the knowledge and skills to become the environmental leaders of tomorrow."

Founded in 2000, Groundwork Hudson Valley creates sustainable environmental change in urban neighborhoods through community-based partnerships that promote equity, youth leadership, and economic opportunity. The group has been working in southwest Yonkers to create a more environmentally just community.

"The work that Groundwork is doing with the Yonkers Public School System is impressive and offers a strong model for creating environmental stewardship opportunities for underserved youth throughout the Hudson Valley and across our country," KeyBank Market President John Manginelli said. "Bringing sustainability education to elementary schoolers and creating conservation jobs for teens not only benefits our youth but helps create a ripple effect for real environmental change in our neighborhoods. KeyBank is proud to support their educational program expansion."

Notable projects Groundwork Hudson Valley has undertaken include the restoration of thousands of linear yards of riparian forest, the creation of conservation jobs for local youth in the community, the "daylighting" of the Saw Mill River, and the creation of the award-winning sustainability education center, the Science Barge, anchored 30 feet off the downtown Yonkers waterfront. Most recently, the organization has received funding to design and execute a high school-to-career program in urban forestry that will serve as a model for other school districts across the nation.

KeyBank’s grant to Groundwork is part of the bank’s $40 billion community investments plan focused on economic access and equity to communities across the country. The scope of the plan includes investments and lending in affordable housing, home lending, small business lending, green initiatives, and transformative philanthropy targeted toward workforce development, education, and safe, vital neighborhoods for underserved communities and populations, according to the bank.