PNC has donated more than $57,000 to support eight pre-kindergarten education programs in the Mahoning Valley through the bank’s PNC Grow Up Great initiative.

Grow Up Great is a $500 million, multi-year, bilingual initiative to support early childhood education.

Awarded grants are:

United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley — $25,000 to support the Success By 6 program, which provides for a four-week pre-kindergarten summer readiness program to hundreds of local students;

Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley — $6,000 to support the Reach Out and Read Program, which uses pediatricians and nurses to discuss and encourage reading with their patients and families and distributes a free book during their regular pediatric checkups;

Alta Care Group — $6,500 for the UPSTREAM program, a home based literacy and social skills program;

Columbiana County Head Start — $3,000 for books and other giveaways to celebrate preschool graduation;

Harold W. McMillen Center for Health Education — $5,000 for the Brush Early Childhood Oral Health program that incorporates science and literacy lessons into a program designed to improve the oral hygiene of preschool students;

Lit Youngstown — $3,000 to collaborate with Alta Head Start to provide new books for Alta Head Start preschoolers;

OH WOW! The Roger and Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science and Technology — $6,811 to fund STEM-related outreach to local preschools, field trips to early education centers and to the Success by 6 summer programs;

YWCA of Youngstown — $2,500 to support preschool enrichment activities.

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