Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership, Mayor Sarno to Announce Over $1 Million in Grants to 15 Local Summer Programs Thursday, 2:30 p.m.
The Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership (SEZP) will be joined by Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and representatives from Springfield Public Schools to announce grants to 15 local summer programs totaling more than $1 million on Thursday, June 15 at 2:30 p.m. at Martin Luther King, Jr. Family Services, 3 Rutland Street, Springfield.
The grants are made possible by a multi-year grant to SEZP from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to support out-of-school time learning. The grants to the 15 organizations will support summer enrichment and social-emotional learning for an estimated 750 Springfield children. The grant recipients will be announced at the Thursday event.
SEZP – which oversees the selection, evaluation and measurement of the grant – ran a competitive grant process for community-based organizations for this summer. For the second straight summer, SEZP has received funding to support Springfield’s community-based organizations to serve more children during these critical months. In total, SEZP has received $3 million and supported 19 local organizations in afterschool and summer programs.
The research on the importance of summer programming is long-established and clear: connecting children (and families) with enriching summer activities increases student engagement, reverses conventional learning loss trends and builds core life skills.
About the Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership: The Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership (SEZP) – an independently governed non-profit established in 2015 as a partnership among Springfield Public Schools, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Springfield Education Association – seeks to improve the longitudinal life outcomes of nearly 5,000 students, in the 16 middle and high schools that it manages and operates. In all of its work, SEZP is in pursuit of equity and anti-racism – acknowledging the systemic oppression our students and families encounter daily and working to disrupt these provision gaps urgently and courageously.