The new workforce training program at the Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center, has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Long Island Racial Equity Donor Collaborative and the Long Island Community Foundation.
After receiving a planning grant last year from LICF, The Center began to develop its “Teach Me How to Fish” program. The High Skills Workforce Training Strategy is designed to help put Black community members on a path to financial security through the accumulation of specialized skills that will help to open doors of opportunity leading to a career path and upward economic mobility.
“Teach Me How to Fish” is focused on providing high skills training opportunities in the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) and real estate sectors. The Center and all four organizations awarded grants from LIREDC are working in their individual ways to help close the Wealth Equity Gap. The Center is focusing on the East End communities and towns from Riverhead to Montauk.
“The Center is living in gratitude for this opportunity to grow and expand ‘Teach Me How to Fish.’ The data shows what many Black people already knew – there is a big gap in economic equity on the East End. I have dreamed of being able to help those teens, not able to attend college for fear of crushing debt and high school grades, and adults in need of higher wages,” said Bonnie Michelle Cannon, the executive director of BHCCRC. “This Grant from LIREDC is moving us in the right direction. We will be improving and providing new skills that will lead to higher paying jobs and careers in growth industries. The Center will be able to make a significant impact on this long-standing issue and will most importantly change lives for the better for many Black people.”
“We are tremendously grateful for the opportunity that the LIREDC has provided. ‘Teach Me How to Fish’ is not just a program – it’s a transformative strategy. A strategy, centered on economic equity, to drive upward economic and social mobility and allow the dreams of all our community members to become a reality. We look forward to working with our community partners to help turn this unprecedented opportunity into action, and action into impact,” said Lukas Weinstein of Teach Me How to Fish at BHCCRC.