Harold Simmons Foundation Awards Promising Youth Alliance $100,000 Gift to bring PYA’s Services to Uplift’s Williams Preparatory School

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Promising Youth Alliance announced a $100,000 gift from the Harold Simmons Foundation. It will be used by PYA to expand integrated youth development services to Williams Preparatory, an Uplift Education Charter School. Through the collaboration, PYA currently serves more than 130 children at Roseland Homes, 2101 North Washington Avenue, where it also maintains its administrative offices.

“The generosity of the Simmons Foundation means the lives of hundred more children can be changed for the better, and the value of the cooperative services can be assessed and tracked – thus attracting additional funding for further expansion.”

Promising Youth Alliance (PYA) is the formal collaboration between Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas, and Phoenix Houses of Texas. This unique collaboration brings excellent comprehensive and unduplicated afterschool programs to children primarily located in low income communities. PYA incorporates a logic model to collect and carefully measure critical data on youth development by utilizing the University of Texas at Dallas’s Institute for Urban Policy Research as an independent third party.

PYA Chairman of the Board J. D. (Denny) Carreker said, “We are grateful to the Simmons Foundation for recognizing that through PYA’s centralized coordination of youth services, the impact is amplified and economies of scale can be reached so these excellent providers can meet the needs of more and more children who need their services – children who otherwise would get left further and further behind.”

Since its 2010 formation, PYA has exceeded its targets for children served and programs in place through its Dallas pilot programs. Carreker said, “The generosity of the Simmons Foundation means the lives of hundred more children can be changed for the better, and the value of the cooperative services can be assessed and tracked – thus attracting additional funding for further expansion.”

Charles English, president of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas, said, “We are grateful to the Simmons Foundation for recognizing that this unique synergistic partnership with other premier youth development service providers means more children can benefit from our programs.”

Tammy Richards, CEO, Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star, said, “What this generous gift means is that our world-class mentoring programs can be enriched by input from other providers, meaning even better care for our little brothers and little sisters at Williams Prep and other PYA locations.”

Maeve O’Neill, Deputy Regional Director, Phoenix Houses of Texas, said, “Once again the Simmons Foundation demonstrates its commitment to youth through this generous support. Phoenix House is proud to be a part of this integrated collaboration that allows us to extend drug prevention services that focus on substance abuse, abstinence, positive attitudes, behavioral issues and discipline.”

Betsy Healy, Grants Director at the Harold Simmons Foundation, said, “We are privileged to contribute to Promising Youth Alliance, thus endorsing a demonstrably effective collaboration among world class providers. Through PYA, these great service providers increase the benefits of their own programs, and they add much-needed efficiencies to the delivery of their services. We look forward to seeing the results of their ongoing program assessments and tracking.”

Besides the Harold Simmons Foundation, PYA has attracted significant funding from a number of private individuals and foundations.

About PYA: Promising Youth Alliance (PYA) is the alliance of three of the nation’s most successful providers of youth development services: Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas, and Phoenix Houses of Texas. PYA delivers afterschool programming and services that serve the whole child cost-effectively with best-in-class services from each organization. PYA was initially developed as the result of a pro bono engagement by McKinsey & Company's Dallas office that assessed successful after-school programs around the country and analyzed the particular needs of Dallas's youth. Upon enrollment, youth are assessed by the University of Texas at Dallas’s Institute for Urban Policy Research so that PYA’s services can be aligned to the needs of each youth. Then the synergistic impact of PYA’s partners’ programs are periodically measured and assessed by UTD. www.promisingyouthalliance.org