Baker Restores Pittsfield's Shannon Grant Funding
 Adam Hinds introduced his team to the community at an event last month. |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — On Aug. 18, 2014, a 17-year-old man was shot in broad daylight by another juvenile. Months later, a high school student was arrested with a loaded gun. Incidents of youth and gang violence continue to plague the city.
The shooting triggered a massive community meeting and city officials looked to broaden their efforts to combat violence.
The Pittsfield Community Connection formed to launch a mentoring and outreach program to help the vulnerable teenage population. And just as the program was about to launch, Gov. Charlie Baker slashed the program by some $40,000 to help close a budget gap.
The city sought and received additional help from local businesses to fill the gap.
On Thursday, Baker announced the restoration of those funds, so the Pittsfield Community Connection can now run the program it wanted. Baker released $1.25 million statewide for the Charles E. Shannon Grant program, with $44,808 coming to Pittsfield.
"We have a pretty robust jobs program we are working on ... This will allow for more of our participants to be involved in that program," program coordinator Adam Hinds said.
Forty young people are eyed to be involved with the Pittsfield Community Connection and now about a third of them will be placed in summer jobs. Hinds said the youth — ranging from age 13 to 22 — will be working in community gardens, for Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, and in the Goodwill's "soft skills" program. The grant money pays the participants for their work every day and teaches them job skills like farming and carpentry.
Some of those additional funds will increase the hours of social worker John Schnauber, who crafts plans for each individual in the program, connecting them with jobs or other resources he or she needs.
"He is really essential for putting together a plan for each participant," Hinds said.
Meanwhile, the organization "diversified" their funding sources. With the support of local banks and businesses, and a grant from the Berkshire United Way, Hinds said the program has expanded in its reach and brings in more of the community. The program was initially eyed for gang violence but has shed that focus in favor of a more encompassing program to help venerable youth.
"There is a big difference between the program you want to run and what you think will be the most effective and piecing it together," Hinds said. "The bottom line is we are really excited that this will allows us to ensure community involvement."
Mayor Daniel Bianchi called the Pittsfield Community Connection a "real vibrant, community-based, grassroots-based, effort" to combat youth violence.
"I think we are going to be able do some dynamic things with the true public-private partnership as it relates to issues of youth, gang violence. This community gets it," Bianchi said.
Bianchi said not only has businesses stepped in to help financially, but some have joined the effort with mentoring programs. The mayor said the next step is to coordinate all of the community efforts on youth violence. He added he'd like to see some funds to expand summer programs for the youth.
"I think the tremendous response we received from the private sectors shows they understand the importance of this," the mayor said.
Beyond the jobs program, Hinds said he is launching a mentoring program. Currently, there are 30 people being screened to be mentors but Hinds said he could easily used double that. At a minimum, he'd like 10 more so that each mentor is matched up with one youth. Hinds is also looking to grow that aspect into matching mentors with the parents or caregivers.
"We have a good number of mentors but we need more," he said. "We need to double the amount of mentors we have."
The city's use of the grant funding has both evolved and grown over the last three years. In 2013, the city won a $60,000 award through the grant and used it to open a community center at Dower Square, which brought social services and other services to the housing project. The following year the city was awarded $100,000, which was used to hire Hinds to oversea and craft a program. In December, the city was awarded $133,000 and the mentoring and jobs program was crafted.
The city's effort to raise funds from the private sector coupled with the restoration of the grant, the program is going to be even more robust than originally thought.
In announcing the supplemental funds, Baker said, "I am pleased that we are now able to increase our investment in these important programs as summer sets in to combat youth violence and gang activity that threatens public safety and access to opportunity in communities across the Commonwealth... These programs have delivered meaningful results and show the positive impact we can have when state and local partners join forces to tackle a serious and recurring problem such as youth violence."
Hinds said the announcement came at the perfect time because with the summer, the Pittsfield Community Connection will be taking off.
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Tags: shannon grant, youth center, youth programs,
