PPS Students Create Poetry and Art and Discuss Careers

            Experiences beyond the classroom enrich what happens inside of the classroom. . . . Thank you for allowing so many of our students to see life and culture beyond the  confines of their neighborhoods––and to experience, grow, and learn in such a positive, fulfilling, and rewarding way. ––Pittsburgh Banksville Teacher

Pittsburgh Banksville (Grade 5) and Pittsburgh West Liberty (Grade 4) participated in January in PHLF’s Building Pride/Building Character EITC (Educational Improvement Tax Credit) program, and Pittsburgh Langley (Middle) participated in an after-school enrichment program, “Going Places: Building Skills and Exploring Architecture.”

Below is a gallery of photos from the event.

As a result, students from Banksville created poetry and artwork that will be published in a book that students will be given to keep; West Liberty students imagined being bankers, lawyers, small business owners, architects, and stonemasons, among other careers; and Langley students toured the Carpenter’s Training Center to see how math, science, art, and language arts are at the core of the building professions. We thank Rick Okraszewski, training director, for sharing his time and expertise with Langley students.

“These programs are made possible through contributions from the following businesses and private foundations,” said Executive Director Louise Sturgess. “We thank the Alfred M. Oppenheimer Memorial Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation; McSwigan Family Foundation; Huntington Bank; PNC Bank; First National Bank of Pennsylvania; BNY Mellon; ESB Bank; Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, Inc.; Hefren-Tillotson, Inc.; and Maher Duessel, CPA, for their generous support.”