Nearly $75,000 in donations are going to Butler County organizations to help kids enjoy this summer.
The United Way of Southwestern PA awarded the funds as part of their “Welcome Back!” initiative. President and CEO Bobbi Watt Geer said a number of community partners joined the effort to help kids get back to fun summer activities this year.
“A lot of us are focused on making sure kids can reconnect. We hear a lot about learning loss, that kids have really been challenged being in hybrid or remote school, but we really wanted to make this about reconnection and fun, as well as social and emotional learning” Geer said.
The funding will help around 1,200 kids in the Butler County area according to Geer. But, the “Welcome Back!” initiative also spans to four other counties and funded more than $2 million to 66 different programs. But that was out of 152 applicants.
“So it just goes to show how much interest there is in the community, and how much need there is in the community,” Geer said. “I think in total we had about $8 million in total requests, for the $2 million that we had available to us.”
“But having 152 applications and the swiftness with which we carried this process out was pretty historic as well,” Geer added.
The grants were based on how many kids participated in the program and locally were awarded in the range of $7,000 to $21,000.