Packers award $25,000 social justice grant to City Year Milwaukee

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The Green Bay Packers announced today they have awarded City Year Milwaukee with a $25,000 social justice grant through the NFL Foundation.


City Year, a nationwide organization, helps students and schools succeed by delivering holistic support to students, classrooms and the whole school. Diverse, trained teams of AmeriCorps members serve full time in schools as student success coaches, who partner with classroom teachers to help students cultivate key social, emotional and academic skills that are important in school and in life.


The Milwaukee location, which includes 120 AmeriCorps members working in 13 schools throughout Milwaukee, aims to increase graduation rates and encourage students, and they partner with schools and educators to support student success through mentoring and positive learning environments.


"City Year Milwaukee is excited to have the Green Bay Packers as a partner in our work," said Dr. Victor Amaya, Interim Executive Director at City Year Milwaukee. "It takes a community of commitment to ensure that our AmeriCorps members and staff have the opportunity to provide excellent service to our students every day, and we are grateful to the Packers for their generous support."


The grant will support the training of AmeriCorps members, help produce materials used in schools, and facilitate program events. Additionally, the grant will be geared toward social emotional learning programming that is provided in partnership with Milwaukee Public Schools. The program is provided at 13 City Year partner schools and addresses the lack of access to learning opportunities, leading to inequitable educational, health and economic outcomes due to systemic inequities that impact students of color and students growing up in low-income households.


The NFL has also awarded City Year nationwide with Inspire Change grants through the Players Coalition, investing in City Year's Whole School Whole Child services in 350 schools across 29 U.S. cities to provide students with positive relationships and learning environments to help them thrive both inside and outside of the classroom and reach their full potential. Together, City Year and the NFL's Inspire Change initiative are helping students to stay on track, engage more fully with their learning, and graduate high school ready for college and career success.


This donation, which comes from the Green Bay Packers and the NFL Foundation, adds to the $500,000 in donations from the Packers to other social justice causes and local organizations this year, and the personal $250,000 donation from Mark and Laurie Murphy, all benefiting groups throughout Wisconsin.


The Packers organization and their players are committed to financially supporting the ongoing effort to improve communities through programs that work to effect change in the areas of racism, oppression, injustice and inequality. In recent years the team and the players have directed funds toward initiatives that reduce barriers to opportunity, through education and economic advancement, criminal justice reform and programs to improve police-community relations.