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Project Rebuild – the Northeast Frankford Boys and Girls Club

$200,000 Grant from Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to help complete the project

State Senator Christine Tartaglione and State Representative Jason Dawkins brought home the bacon when they presented a check for $200,000 to Joseph Marziello, CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Philadelphia, on November 22nd.

Tartaglione and Dawkins invested a lot of time and influence to get the grant for the club.  It is ear marked for the completion of the renovations that have been underway at the club for over a year now.

The work at the club has been one of the biggest construction projects in Frankford this year and it has already made a big difference.

From Marziello’s message on the Boys and Girls Clubs web site:

After establishing the new John and Katie Ericksen Family Literacy Center at our Northeast Frankford Club in March 2017, we began renovations to create a Kids Café, STEM Learning Lab and Technology Center at the Club. The improvements are on-track to be completed In October 2017 and will allow us to provide youth at Frankford with hot, home-cooked food daily while engaging them in critical STEM programming.

… Since renovations to the Northeast Frankford Club began, youth enrollment at the Club has increased by 50 percent, with the number of teens attending Club programming doubling. 

I spoke with Marziello 2 years ago about his vision for the club.  The building was in very poor shape at that point and, yet he was optimistic that he would raise the money and get the job done.  He actually did what he said he was going to do.

Bellow is a video of the presentation.  If you have seen it on Facebook, this is a shorter version of the same.