Goodwill Awarded Grant from Lee Initiatives Health and Wellness Endowment to Expand Life Skills Training

May 8, 2013, Press Release
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Goodwill’s Youth Coordinator, Cindy O’Connor and Goodwill’s President and CEO, Phyllis J. Bandstra with grant check from Lee Initiatives.

JOHNSTOWN, PA, May 8, 2013 — Goodwill of the Southern Alleghenies has been awarded a grant in the amount of $10,598 from the Lee Initiatives Health and Wellness Endowment for its Tuning In II: Expanded Life Skills Training for Problem-Solving and Healthy Living project, which will enable the agency to build upon and expand its reach of the project’s predecessor, Tuning-In: Life Skills Training for Problem-Solving and Healthy Living, made possible by a grant from the endowment in 2012.

The original Tuning In project included the delivery of the widely recognized Botvin Life Skills Training curriculum to youth enrolled in Goodwill’s Learn to Work(SM) program for adjudicated youth with barriers to succeed, and youth in Goodwill’s GoodGuides® Youth Mentoring Program, plus supplemental training for GoodGuides volunteer adult mentors in the culture of poverty and other circumstances associated with risky behaviors that the Botvin curriculum seeks to address.

Through Tuning In II, Goodwill will deliver Botvin Life Skills Training curriculum to 50 additional youth from the community at-large such as GoodGuides’ partners through the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies’ Community Intervention Program, and fellow participants in the Health and Welfare Council of Cambria County.

Tuning In II will also enable Goodwill to train up to 30 new GoodGuides mentors as well as interested adults from the community on strategies and techniques for understanding psycho-social and disadvantaged backgrounds and dealing with challenging behavioral situations.

Adults who are interested in volunteering for the Tuning In II project or who want to refer a youth, please contact Cindy O’Connor, Youth Coordinator, at (814) 536-3536, ext. 304 or coconnor@goodwilljohnstown.org.

Goodwill Industries of the Conemaugh Valley (GICV), Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1962 to empower individuals and families with employment barriers to achieve their fullest potential in the community through work services. Headquartered in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, GICV serves individuals with disabilities and disadvantages, dislocated workers, youth, and other job seekers throughout south central Pennsylvania in the counties of Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Huntingdon, Indiana, Somerset and a portion of Westmoreland by providing education and career services as well as job placement and postemployment supports. GICV is a community-based member organization of Goodwill Industries International, a 179-member network in the U.S., Canada, and 13 other countries. Learn more at www.gicv.org.
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