ZANESVILLE, Ohio- The Straker Foundation awarded Big Brothers Big Sisters of Zanesville a grant of $10,017.00 to go towards its partnership with the Muskingum County Family YMCA.
Big Brothers Big Sisters is using the money for youth development for the ‘littles,’ in which they have the opportunity to enroll in programs at the Family YMCA.
“The children we serve, we serve a lot of at-risk youth, so these families are in need anyway, so to be able to give them that funding and opportunity to be here and to gain some life skills, like swimming, or participate in a spring or summer sport. I think that’s absolutely critical for our future generation,” BBBSZ Executive Director Katie Mainini said.
The awards will be used during the entire funding cycle, which includes a year worth of programs. Early in the year, both BBBSZ and the YMCA partnered to allow ‘bigs’ and ‘littles’ to come in together and have free access to the facility.
“It’s also one of our key tags in our mission which is youth development. That’s one thing that we really wanted to make sure to touch on and have an impact on in this community our youth development and how we are impacting our youth in this community,” Muskingum County Family YMCA Executive Director Jeremy Byers said.
Both organizations thank the Straker Foundation for its generosity and the opportunity to continue serving the area youth.
