Braddock Borough officials are harnessing the tested and proven formula of the Pittsburgh Promise in an attempt to remove one of the greatest higher education barriers for graduating seniors from the financially distressed municipality.
Braddock Mayor John Fetterman on Monday launched a crowd-funding website to raise money for academic scholarships for eligible students, starting with this year’s graduating class.
The goal of the program, modeled on the Pittsburgh Promise, is to raise $250,000 in order to provide scholarships for nine Braddock students graduating this year. The money would cover the expected average yearly scholarship of $6,500 for the duration of the students’ undergraduate careers.
To qualify, students would have to graduate from a public school with a 2.5 grade-point average and 90 percent attendance rate. Braddock students who attend district public schools or bricks-and-mortar charter schools can qualify, with awards up to $40,000 for four years within five years of high school graduation for in-state colleges and trade schools.
A promised donation of more than a half million dollars will give the program financial viability in the future.
The idea of starting the program came last fall, when former Heinz CFO Paul Renne announced that he planned to bequeath $533,000 to Braddock Redux, a community-based nonprofit founded by Mr. Fetterman in 2003. The pending donation from Mr. Renne, who is 71, prompted Mr. Fetterman to approach Pittsburgh Promise executive director Saleem Ghubril about starting a similar scholarship fund for Braddock students.
“We want to give students an incentive to continue to go to school and get good grades,” Mr. Fetterman said. “It isn’t a hypothesis or theory, this is what works, and we want to bring it to Braddock. Why wouldn’t you want to be able to tap into the population that is coming out of Woodland Hills that doesn’t have the advantages of someone living in Squirrel Hill?”
College scholarships reserved for Braddock students could be just the turnaround the area needs, Mr. Fetterman said. According to U.S. Census data, the median household income for Braddock residents was $22,212, less than half of Allegheny County’s median of $51,366 for 2009-13.
“There’s a serious need here,” Mr. Fetterman said. “This is what we want to do, so hopefully the sustainability will emerge as we do it.”
Applications and scholarship disbursements would be managed through the Pittsburgh Promise. Corporate gifts and donations would be channeled through the Pittsburgh Foundation, which also houses funds for the Promise. Mr. Ghubril said he was overwhelmed by the positive response from the Pittsburgh Promise board in December, when members unanimously voted to contract out administrative services for the Braddock Promise.
“It’s a small municipality that’s burdened with a lot of challenges and opportunities,” Mr. Ghubril said. “Hope ends up feeding performance; we’ve seen that. Students see that there’s a way to not only dream big dreams but work hard to reach them because money will no longer be a barrier.”
Brendan Renne, Mr. Renne’s son, said his father originally considered donating the amount to the Pittsburgh Symphony or his alma mater, Saint Vincent College. However, Brendan Renne, who serves as an AmeriCorps volunteer with the Braddock Youth Project, and Brendan’s mom favored investing in the borough instead.
“I was interested in giving it to an organization where you’d see an immediate positive outcome because of the contribution,” Brendan Renne said. “Given how difficult economic mobility is in this country, I think something like this can go a long way toward addressing that, and giving someone who has abilities the chance to make the most of them regardless of their background. The idea of giving kids a sense of hope is absolutely beautiful, I think. There’s sort of been a decay of resources like that available to kids.”
The Rev. Richard Freeman, education committee chair for the Greater Braddock Ministerial Association, said even academically strong students from low-income families can be limited in the amount of outside funding they receive to attend college.
“If you’re living in abject poverty, you have to be the top of the top to even have a chance at higher education,” he said. “College used to be a privilege reserved only for the upper class, and now I feel like we're in a way returning to that. This scholarship speaks to those priorities by helping students not get priced out of school.”
Mr. Fetterman said he hopes to see the scholarship sustain itself for at least the next decade, to provide almost a generation of Braddock students the opportunity to go to college and encourage residents in surrounding areas to consider Braddock as a viable place to live.
“No one’s worrying about whether Mt. Lebanon’s kids are going to college,” said Mr. Fetterman, who hopes other communities will follow suit. “You have these underperforming and struggling schools that were already hit hard by the previous administration's cutbacks, so maybe this can help spread some hope to other districts to Allegheny County.”
First Published: February 17, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
