Governor Cuomo says nearly $16 million in state funding will go into three Rochester projects aimed at reducing poverty in the Finger Lakes Region.
All three were chosen by the Finger lakes Regional Economic Development Council under its “One Community” plan. They’re Monroe Community College’s new Finger Lakes Workforce Development Center at Eastman Business Park, the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative’s new “Mentors for Success” pilot program, and the long-standing Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection program which puts young people to work at Wegmans.
Money is coming from SUNY, from the Empire State Development’s Upstate Revitalization Grant and from private industries.
The governor says poverty is one of the toughest challenges of our time. He says solutions have to start locally and government should support those local efforts with the tools and resources they need.
The MCC program takes students and matches them with high tech jobs in energy, biomaterials and photonics. The FWD Center is hands-on training in precision tooling and the support skills needed for those industries. They expect to train more than 2,300 workers over the next five years.