Posted August 26, 2009 // 0 Comments // add yours
Today finishes our intern stories. We asked them to tell us about their experience during the program, and thought it might be interesting if you heard it from them. Today’s post is from Benjamin Rubino, who will attend DePaul University.
Everyday I would pass the same teacher in the hall and everyday she would encourage me to sign up for this or volunteer for that. And just as regularly as we would meet, I would take the information from her, thank her, and then find the closest trash can out of her sight. But one day she handed me an application for the Heinz Endowments Summer Youth Philanthropy Internship and for some reason I didn’t toss it in the recycling bin. That was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
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Posted August 21, 2009 // 0 Comments // add yours
The local arts organizations convened to discuss the upcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh. In an effort to highlight how important the arts are to Pittsburgh, the following document was produced. We’d like to share it with the community in this space.
Art transforms Pittsburgh:
The arts are a key strategy in transforming the region, with shining examples in communities like the Northside, Lawrenceville, Penn Avenue, the Cultural District, Braddock and Southside. These cultural communities are essential to the region’s quality of life and are evidence of the vital impact of the arts.
Art employs Pittsburgh:
The nonprofit arts and cultural industry in Allegheny County generates $341 million in economic activity and supports over 10,000 full time equivalent jobs. Revenues of nearly $34 million are generated through local and state tax.* The arts are a smart economic investment.
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Posted August 21, 2009 // 0 Comments // add yours
Today continues our intern stories. We asked them to tell us about their experience during the program, and thought it might be interesting if you heard it from them. Today’s post is from Felicia Brown, who will attend Penn State University, Beaver.
This year I had the privilege to be a Heinz Endowments Summer Youth Intern at The Pittsburgh Foundation. I heard of this internship from a print out email from an old employer at the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, Lori Rue. She talked very highly of it and encouraged the group to apply. I read it with interest, and was the only one who decided to pursue it. I was kind of scared because I didn’t come from a “good school”, or never really went through an interview before, so honestly I almost didn’t think I would be considered. After the long and scary application process, interviewing and a couple months of waiting, I was so excited to hear from Wayne Jones, Program Officer at the Heinz Endowments, and that I will be starting on June 15, 2009. He explained to us that we were going to be learning about the grant making process, and this year’s theme was the environment. I couldn’t wait, but I was scared and excited at the same time. I didn’t really know what to expect. Thus it was the beginning and end of my summer, but it was well worth the sacrifice.
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Posted August 20, 2009 // 0 Comments // add yours
Today continues our intern stories. We asked them to tell us about their experience during the program, and thought it might be interesting if you heard it from them. Today’s post is from Elizabeth Moody, who will attend Ohio state University.
It was only by purest chance that I heard about the Heinz Endowments Summer Youth Philanthropy Program. My high school guidance department webpage, which was hardly ever updated and I only checked sporadically, mentioned this internship. It sounded intriguing, and from the information I could glean from the Endowments website it looked like it could be a good program. At that point I didn’t have any plans for the upcoming summer, so on a bitter cold Thursday afternoon I hustled down to Dominion Tower to attend the information session. Afterwards, I still wasn’t certain what all the internship would entail, but I was definitely interested.
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Posted August 19, 2009 // 0 Comments // add yours
By Grant Oliphant
Bravo to Superintendent Mark Roosevelt, teachers’ union head John Tarka, and the entire Pittsburgh Public Schools team for their big win in qualifying for a Gates grant to support teacher excellence. This is HUGE news not just because of the potential size of the Gates funding (we’re talking tens of millions here), but also because of the crazy rigor demanded by the application process. Gates gives away larger sums than most of us can fathom, and they rightly ask an enormous amount of grant applicants. Qualifying for a grant in a process like this is, for a school district like ours, akin to training for and eventually winning the Funding Super Bowl. The competition for these grants was intense, and just the process of applying forced the school district and its many supporters to double up on our ambitions and behave like we really mean them. In many ways, winning the grant was just the icing on the cake-admittedly very rich icing, but if PPS and the teachers union keep on the path they started during this process, that will be a mammoth victory in its own right. Pittsburgh started this process as the clear underdog. We won because the PPS board, staff and teachers drove themselves hard, thought big, worked together and got the job done. What a great example of leadership in action. Congrats!
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