SAIT’s School of Hospitality and Tourism was the recipient of a $2 million donation on Wednesday and the money will be used to give at-risk youth access to programs.
The Joyce Family Foundation will provide the funds over two years and it is the largest gift to the program to date.
“The gift today was very important in that it allowed SAIT to reach out to disadvantaged youth and to provide them with an opportunity and access to something that they normally couldn’t have access to,” said Andrea Rosgen, Joyce Family Foundation.
The Summer Cooks Introduction to Cook Apprentice pilot program was started in 2015 and it will receive $1 million to ensure it can continue.
SAIT’s President and CEO, David Ross, says the program has been a huge success and the money will go a long way to ensure that it continues.
“What it’s done is a couple of things. First of all its afforded us an opportunity to use a facility that we don’t often use as much in the summer time so it was available and the students as well, they come through Grade 11, they come through Grade 12, they may need some help during the summer to get through high school and I think the two married well. This is our third year of doing the program and it’s been very successful,” he said. “We’ll use it as an as-needed basis and we think this is going to last us several years.”
The rest of the money will be used for bursaries for incoming students to any program to help them finance their educations.
“Secondly it’s going to afford us the opportunity to help more students that wouldn’t financially have the opportunity to attend SAIT and I’m looking forward to helping them,” said Ross. “We certainly appreciate our business partnerships and all of our local partnerships but SAIT sits on a national stage and I think this is a good example of how we’re able to bring resources, in view of that, to help our students here in southern Alberta.”
For more information on SAIT’s School of Hospitality and Tourism click HERE.
