Nature-based learning project to benefit underserved children in Youngstown

Alta Care Group announced it is collaborating with PNC Foundation to reimagine the outdoor play area at the Alta Head Start McCartney Learning Center in Youngstown. This effort, made possible by a $75,000 grant from PNC Foundation, will open this fall.
PNC is placing a special focus on outdoor play and learning as part of the 20-year anniversary of PNC Grow Up Great®, a $500 million, bilingual initiative created to help prepare children from birth through age 5 for success in school and in life, with particular emphasis on underserved communities.

“PNC-funded research by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) shows that young children are spending less time outside,” said Ted Schmidt, PNC regional president for Youngstown. “A growing body of research suggests that outdoor pre-K play and learning offers a wealth of benefits for children’s health and wellbeing, language development, cognitive and social-emotional skills, and more.”
Alta worked alongside Meyer Design and PNC Foundation to co-create the outdoor play area. Design plans for the project integrated the need for safe, stimulating surroundings with a nature-filled aesthetic that encourages creative play. Playground features will include a reading nook, small stage, a wooden arch bridge that leads to a path, a mud kitchen, a wooden tunnel that the children can enter and exit from, musical instruments, many plants and flowers with additional planters for fruit or vegetable plants, in addition to a pergola with wooden picnic tables.
Joe Shorokey, Alta CEO, said that PNC has been a longtime supporter of Alta’s early childhood mental health services and the Alta Head Start Program.

“We are incredibly fortunate to have been selected to benefit from the PNC Grow Up Great® 20-year anniversary grant,” Shorokey said. This will be a wonderful asset to the children at our McCartney Road site.”

PNC Foundation
The PNC Foundation, which receives its principal funding from The PNC Financial Services Group (www.pnc.com), actively supports organizations that provide services for the benefit of communities in which it has a significant presence. The foundation focuses its philanthropic mission on early childhood education and community and economic development, which includes the arts and culture. Through PNC Grow Up Great®, its signature cause that began in 2004, PNC has created a bilingual $500 million, multi-year initiative to help prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life.

Alta Care Group
Alta Care Group is the Valley agency committed to the social, emotional, behavioral, educational and physical well-being of children, adolescents, young adults and families in our community.

Helping children, healing familes.