The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee have received a $75,000 grant from the PNC Foundation to offer early financial education to their youngest members.
Through the grant, 10 Boys and Girls Club locations will offer the PNC Grow Up Great program to the Pals group—kids ages 5 to 8. The Sesame Street themed program is called “For Me, For You, For Later.”
The program will be held once a week for the next two years to teach 450 children at the Boys and Girls Clubs’ after school programs about spending, saving and sharing money. Lessons include concepts like the difference between wants and needs, said Jacqueline Zeledon, communications manager for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee.
“The first payment was received in November 2011 for this current academic semester,” Zeledon said. “The Clubs are to be paid over two years in two equal installments.”
PNC Grow Up Great is a bilingual program aimed at underserved children to encourage success in school and life. PNC has donated more than $40 million to more than one million at-risk preschool kids since the program was started in 2004.
Kids will receive reading materials, a lesson DVD and jar labels to take home. The clubs will be provided with additional educational materials.
Volunteers from PNC Bank recently gathered with Boys and Girls Club Pals groups at the Daniels-Mardak Boys & Girls Club, 4834 N. 35th St. in Milwaukee, to launch the Grow Up Great program. The bank’s employees are encouraged to volunteer with the program year-round.
