Boys & Girls Club of Rochester receives $15K grant

(ABC 6 News) – The Boys & Girls Club of Rochester received a $15,000 Foundation grant from AT&T to support local youth.

The grant will support the Boys & Girls Club academic programs for students with limited internet access, which has become especially important because of the pandemic and remote learning.

"One of the things that we saw here is the challenge that the pandemic raised with our students, with our young people, as they needed to learn, as they didn’t have the internet connections at home which caused a homework gap which was unacceptable in this city," Rochester Mayor Kim Norton, said. "Our schools, when they moved online, left kids who did not have access at a disadvantage."

It’s part of AT&T’s nationwide commitment to help bridge the divide and the homework gap, which many of the clubs’ members are directly affected by.

"My WiFi used to go down a lot and it was really spotty and I could never get my assignments done on time until I used the homework help and the study hour we had here and that’s when my grades went from (sub) par to exceptional," Briella Carmichael, a member of the Boys & Girls Club of Rochester, said.

Some of the after-school programs that this grant will support include the Power Hour homework program, tutoring support and STEM programs.