Dater Foundation approves grant for Connect2Success
July 10, 2009
The Charles H. Dater Foundation has awarded Cincinnati State Technical and Community College a $10,000 grant for use in a regional program designed to help young people complete their education and find productive jobs.
Cincinnati State is host to the program, known as Connect2Success, and partners with more than two dozen organizations in the region to deliver services.
The program -- which is also funded by Hamilton County and the state of Ohio, among others – is open to persons between the ages of 15 and 25 who live in Hamilton County.
The Connect2Success process begins with an assessment to determine an applicant’s educational status and needs – in terms not just of schooling, but also job training, employment, day care for dependent children, life skills and the like.
Connect2Success counselors then try to match the individual with needed services -- at whichever venues are most appropriate. Among the organizations providing services through Connect2Success are Jobs for Cincinnati Graduates, Cincinnati Public Schools’ ABLE and GED programs, the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Community Action Agency, Dohn Community School, Great Oaks, Job Corps, the Lower Price Hill Community School, the University of Cincinnati Center of Education, the Urban Appalachian Council, the Greater Cincinnati Urban League and the YWCA.
The Connect2Success coalition has developed programs that allow students to go back to traditional or charter high schools, participate in credit recovery programs or obtain GEDs through partner institutions. Another phase of the initiative provides for post-secondary education at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College and other institutions.
Organizers are also raising money to provide life skill and job readiness training, subsidize day care, promote cooperative education opportunities and identify job options for those who require an income while completing the program. Connect2Success has received stage one endorsement from Strive, a program of the KnowledgeWorks foundation.
Services are provided at no cost to the participant. To date, 66 young adults have completed a GED or high school diploma program, and 74 who have come into the program as dropouts have enrolled in college or found full-time employment.
The Charles H. Dater Foundation was established in 1985. Designed to operate in perpetuity, the foundation makes grants to non-profit organizations in Greater Cincinnati that carry out projects that benefit children and focus on arts/culture, education, health care, social services and other community needs.
The foundation was established by the late Charles Hixson Dater (1912-1993) to carry on his own philanthropic work and to recognize family members who worked in the Cincinnati area over four generations.
Charles Dater's great grandfather, Adam Dater, emigrated from Germany and settled in Cincinnati in 1830. Hard work and business acumen were hallmarks of succeeding generations of Dater family members, who generously shared their success with their community. A Cincinnati high school and Montessori school are named in honor of Gilbert Dater, grandfather of Charles.
Mr. Dater himself was raised in Northside, graduated from the University of Cincinnati and pursued a master's degree in business administration at Harvard University. He served as an officer in the U.S. Army during World War II.
His father had died when Charles was 17 years old, and he was thrust into management of the family's holdings at an early age. After his mother died, his full-time focus became the family's investments and residential land development in Western Hills, where he lived in a modest ranch home.
During Mr. Dater’s lifetime, and for a period after he died, donations from his family and the foundation were typically anonymous.
