Empowering Students to Realize Dreams of Educational Mobility Through Academic Preparedness, Experiential Opportunity & Tuition Assistance
Dedham (MA), October 20, 2022 – The Trustees of the Yawkey Foundation today announced $1.1 million in Program & Small Capital grant funding to Greater Boston nonprofit organizations dedicated to providing pathways to academic and economic mobility for individuals in Greater Boston, perpetuating the legacy and philanthropic efforts of Tom Yawkey and Jean Yawkey.
These grants are in addition to $1.5 million in college tuition scholarship funding provided in the 2021-2022 academic year through the Yawkey Scholars Program and Yawkey-endowed scholarship programs, primarily to underserved, first-generation students in Massachusetts and Georgetown County, SC.
The nonprofits receiving Education grants include:
- Bottom Line (Boston) to support programs that partner 2,300+ first-generation, degree-aspiring students from low-income backgrounds with trained 1:1 Advisors to get into college, graduate, and go far in life.
- Boys & Girls Club of MetroWest (Marlborough) to remodel the club’s technology center and adjoining multipurpose room to provide a welcoming, safe, and dignified space for all members to participate in STEM and computer activities, and for teen members to participate in programs separated from the after-school program serving young children.
- Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston’s Yawkey Club (Roxbury) to provide college and career “Life-After-the-Club” programming to help teens prepare to achieve success once they graduate high school and pursue academic and career pathways.
- Hyde Square Task Force (Jamaica Plain) to support the Jóvenes en Acción/Youth in Action (JEA) College Success Program, offering academic support, mentoring, and college and career guidance that youth need to succeed in school and adulthood.
- Jackie Robinson Foundation’s JRF Scholars, built upon a meaningful 30-year partnership originally forged in 1988 when Jean Yawkey and Rachel Robinson first met and connected over a shared commitment to empowering youth, the JRF Scholars program supports tuition scholarships and leadership development for talented college students who reflect the core values that reflect the life and legacy of Jackie Robinson.
- Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (Dorchester) to support programs helping girls and women gain academic and certificate accreditations, as well as technology skills and health care sector training, to develop marketable job skills to enter employment for the first time or increase current earnings.
- Notre Dame Education Center (Lawrence) to support the Nursing Assistant/Home Health Aide Training Program that provides classroom instruction, clinical experience, and the soft skills necessary for employment as in-demand nurses with immediate job opportunities.
Additionally, the Yawkey Scholars Program, which since 2005 has provided nearly $16 million in college tuition support to more than 380 Scholars in Massachusetts and Georgetown County, SC, earlier this year designated eight new Yawkey Scholars, who began their first year of college in September 2022. Information about the Yawkey Scholars Program, including guidelines, application instructions, and important updates to the 2023-24 Massachusetts program, can be found here.
About the Yawkey Foundation
The Yawkey Foundation is dedicated to perpetuating the philanthropic legacy of Tom Yawkey and Jean Yawkey, whose eight decades of quiet generosity supported individuals and families in the communities that were closest to their hearts, including Boston, Massachusetts, and Georgetown County, South Carolina. Having awarded more than $530 million to date in charitable grants to organizations focused on health care, education, human services, youth, and amateur athletics, arts and culture, and conservation and wildlife, the Yawkey Foundation is committed to preserving and sustaining the charitable values of the Yawkeys by investing in nonprofits that provide resources, opportunity, and dignity to the vulnerable and underserved. For more information, please visit www.yawkeyfoundation.org and follow the Foundation on social media @YawkeyFdns.