What's Happening?
Schenectady Bridges Partnership
The Schenectady Foundation brought its Golden Grants campaign to a close by awarding a $1 million transformational grant to help Schenectady families build Bridges Out of Poverty to sustainable lives.
The grant, awarded to the Schenectady Bridges Partnership, will catalyze the resources of this multi-sector collaboration to help transform the quality of life for people in under-resourced communities. The Schenectady Bridges Partnership intends to create sustainable career employment, support indigenous leaders and neighborhoods to create their future stories, and make their communities more stable, safe and livable.
City Mission of Schenectady is serving as the lead agency, and will coordinate the activities among the other partners, including: Schenectady Community Action Program (SCAP), Boys & Girls Clubs of Schenectady, Community Fathers, Schenectady County Community College (SCCC), Neighborhood Transformation Coalition and Union Graduate College. “Other organizations are expected to join as new initiatives are rolled out over the next three years,” said Carreau.
The Bridges Partnership plans to leverage more than $1.5 million in additional resources to help Schenectady families to build bridges out of poverty. The effort is expected to assist aas many as 1,000 individuals to obtain, retain or improve their employment over the next three years.
Collaboration is Key to Success
“Collaboration is a requirement to succeed,” said Michael Saccocio, Executive Director, City Mission of Schenectady. “No single agency has the reso
urces or capabilities to deliver on everything that is needed to accomplish transformation in the community. Collaborating is something that we have gotten very good at here in Schenectady. The Bridges Partnership is evidence that we are all aligned behind a unified mission – each doing our part to remove barriers to sustainability for people and families in our community.”
In total, about 75 agencies and 2,500 people have been trained in, or participated in, the Schenectady Bridges programs to-date. “We’ve had widespread consensus as to how we can all work together for the betterment of the community,” added Saccocio. “We’re at a point where we can really leverage that and take advantage of the resources that each partner brings to the table.”
