Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi announces $2 million in funding for Boys & Girls Clubs of Dundee Township’s New Impact Center
Carpentersville, IL – On Friday, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08) presented Boys & Girls Clubs of Dundee Township (BGCDT) President Wendy Farley and CEO Drew Glassford with a $2 million grant for their new Woodlands Impact Center.
The funding will provide vital services directed at under-served middle and high school students in their daily after-school and summer programs. The Impact Center’s programs include academic support, mentoring, career pathway support, especially in STEM-related opportunities, and counseling services.
“Ninety-one percent of the kids we serve are at the poverty level or below. They lack awareness of local career opportunities and how to be successfully prepared for them upon graduation,” Glassford said. “Our new Woodlands Impact Center will engage approximately 300 youth in our community not currently served by our mentoring and career pathway programs. We are so grateful to Congressman Krishnamoorthi for helping us engage young people in our community in discovering new opportunities that will enable them to thrive in good-paying, skills-based jobs.”
This historic government funding legislation passed in December of 2022 delivered $2,000,000 million in community project funding secured by Congressman Krishnamoorthi to Illinois’ 8th district. “Boys & Girls Clubs of Dundee Township’s new Woodlands Impact Center will make an enormous difference in the lives of local middle and high school students through afterschool and summer programs, and I’m proud to have aided those efforts by securing $2,000,000 in federal funding for this important program,” said Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi. “Decades of research have demonstrated the importance of providing students with opportunities to grow intellectually outside the classroom, and the Woodlands Impact Center will do exactly that by providing academic and career support, along with counseling services and STEM-related opportunities. I look forward to seeing the difference these programs will make for hundreds of students in the years to come as they grow and learn more about skills-based careers.”
Congressman Krishnamoorthi’s announcement kicked off a day-long community engagement session hosted by BGCDT that included local and state officials, business leaders, school district and nonprofit executives, and representatives from AmeriCorps and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration at the Department of Commerce. Part of the U.S. Department of Education’s #YOUBelonginSTEM initiative.
The convening focused on how the Impact Center will engage area youth in STEM-related careers in advanced manufacturing and other growing industries. The first nonprofit to host a convening in 2023, BGCDT collaborated with STEMconnector, a national firm committed to increasing the number of STEM-ready workers in the global talent pool.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Dundee Township (BGCDT) was founded in 1997 with the mission of enabling all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. In its 25-year history, BGCDT has become the premier local provider of after-school youth programming, as an active change agent to develop great futures for over 2,000 youth each year.
