Executive Director

                                                                                                   Groundwork Bridgeport

                                                                                                    203-335-6126

                           www.groundworkbridgeport.org.

 

 

Bridgeport, CT, May 8, 2009—The Tauck Foundation has awarded Groundwork Bridgeport, a local nonprofit organization, a $20,000 grant in support of Groundwork’s innovative Green Team program.

 

The Green Team program targets at risk urban youths in Bridgeport and teaches them job skills in preparation for entry into the work force. The Green Team is an extension of Groundwork Bridgeport’s Butterflies Are Teachers (or BAT) program. The BAT programs places Harding High School students in a mentoring role for elementary school children in which they teach an innovative curricula in math, science, and ecology using the life cycle of the butterfly.  

 

The most promising BAT mentors are recruited into the Green Team, a paid summer internship and job training program. Over the course of the summer, the youths are assigned to a range of landscaping projects led by Groundwork Bridgeport staff. Each project fosters different adventures and learning challenges, reinforces basic job skills, and provides opportunities to learn new information and techniques. The program also includes a job training and personal financial management component.  “Members learn to apply, interview, and obtain jobs, these vital skills that are not taught in schools. Leadership of the Green Team is given to the students who are the most responsible and demonstrate the strongest work ethic,” says Richard Tiani, executive director of Groundwork Bridgeport.  

 

The Green Team program is run by Jonathan Shubert, a teacher at Harding High School and member of Groundwork Bridgeport’s Board of Directors. The Bridgeport Green Team frequently teams up with the Green Team from Oxford, CT which is led by high school teacher Joe Lanier, also a board member. These meetings between the two teams allow students from different socioeconomic backgrounds to interact and work together. Green Team projects are carried out at Harding High School and various sites around Bridgeport as well as Weir Farm, a National Park Service site in Wilton, and other sites throughout the state.

 

Elizabeth Walters, Managing Director of the Tauck Foundation says “We were first introduced to the work of Groundwork Bridgeport in 2000, and are very pleased to be able to support their Green Team program with this most recent grant.  Our board was impressed with the Green Team’s innovative combination of experiential education, job training, environmental stewardship, and community revitalization.  It truly embodies the mission and philosophy of Groundwork Bridgeport as a whole.  We wish this summer’s team the very best!”

 

Groundwork Bridgeport is dedicated to revitalizing the urban environment of Bridgeport and working with youth to provide environmental education. The organization is in its 11^th year of operation and is successfully growing a number of programs. Since 1998, GWB has partnered with over 6700 individuals, 54 groups, 33 businesses and 26 foundations to reclaim and beautify neighborhoods. Through GWB, volunteers have worked over 530 service hours so far in 2009. This year, the Butterflies Are Teachers and Green Team programs engaged over 450 public elementary, middle, and high school youth to become proactive in improving the visual quality of life in their neighborhoods while strengthening their science and math skills, and developing skills for entering the workplace after high school.  For more information about Groundwork Bridgeport and their work in the community, please call us at: (203) 335-6126, or visit us on the web at: www.groundworkbridgeport.org.