Washington, D.C. – Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva today congratulated Pima County and a team of allied local organizations on receiving a $5.4 million grant from the Department of Labor (DOL) to improve Southern Arizona students’ college and career readiness. The Youth CareerConnect grant – one of 24 awarded across the country totaling $107 million – comes after Grijalva’s office held several meetings with the applicant team and supported the grant application with DOL.

The grant will fund a project called Innovation Frontier Arizona that is being jointly managed by Pima County, the Yuma Private Industry Council, the Santa Cruz Superintendent of Schools and other professional and educational entities. It will help a projected 940 students over its four-year lifespan. An abstract of the successful grant proposal, which includes more information about participating organizations and how the money will be used, is available at http://1.usa.gov/1ssvoFu.

The grant will focus on connecting students to educational and workplace opportunities in applied information technology, industrial technology, biotechnology, and aviation technology. Students in Tucson, Yuma, Nogales, Rio Rico, Douglas and Sierra Vista will be able to take advantage of Innovation Frontier Arizona resources, including a planned 185 students in the first year of the grant.

“Federal assistance can make this sort of local effort more successful and more advantageous for all of us,” Rep. Grijalva said. “Many of the students helped by this project are the same students facing unnecessary education cuts across the board. We’re making educators and employers fight over funding that wouldn’t be scarce if years of austerity hadn’t done so much damage to our economy. Grants like this one are a great way to start a turnaround, and I’m proud to have played a role in making it successful.”

You can learn more about Youth CareerConnect grants at http://www.doleta.gov/ycc/.