Eighteen projects in Berks County have been awarded a total of nearly $2.9 million in state tax credits through the Pennsylvania Neighborhood Assistance Program.<\/p>\n
The program encourages private sector investment in projects that will help improve distressed communities by providing tax credits of up to 95% on contributions that businesses donate to support projects that address neighborhood and community problems.<\/p>\n
The recipients are as follows:<\/p>\n
\u2022 $594,000 to GoggleWorks Art Park to transform distressed space into safe green space with arts, food and education opportunities for residents and visitors.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $459,000 to Helping Harvest Fresh Food Bank to remediate a blighted historic building that houses the food bank\u2019s community kitchen and Berks County Intermediate Unit Head Start classrooms.<\/p>\n
Helping Harvest will also receive $113,750 to purchase and distribute food to low-income residents in Berks and Schuylkill counties.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $343,125 to Walnut Street Holdings to transform a deteriorated and underutilized downtown building into a productive mixed-use property with new storefronts, restaurant activity, housing, jobs and increased economic activity.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $190,125 to the Reading Science Center to expand structured after-school STEM programs, providing hands-on learning, safe supervision and increased access to science enrichment.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $178,750 to the Olivet Boys & Girls Club of Reading and Berks County to renovate their Blue Mountain Camp to expand safe, affordable, structured summer programming for low-income youth.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $174,166 to the Habitat for Humanity of Berks County for the launch of a six-year plan to revitalize a distressed neighborhood, transforming 40 blighted buildings into affordable homes.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $157,500 to the Reading Hospital Foundation for its Street Medicine program, which provides health care services, medication and referrals for the most vulnerable in Berks.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $137,250 to Berks Latino Workforce Development Corporation to complete accessibility-focused building renovations and infrastructure improvements necessary to support safe, functional and accessible educational use within the facility.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $94,500 to Camp Camino in Washington Township to launch an inclusive intellectual and developmental disability workforce program, animal therapy and farm-to-pantry food distribution at Camino Farms.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $90,000 to the 18th Wonder Improvement Association to conduct its Green Team and 18th Ward Beautification Project to create a safer, cleaner, greener and more accessible place to live for residents.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $90,000 to the John Paul II Center for Special Learning to purchase a customized van to ensure reliable workforce participation, transport employees with intellectual disabilities, support consistent cafe staffing and expand catering revenue.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $60,125 for United Way of Berks County to expand its Read Alliance program, which will increase reading and early literacy proficiency rates for children in Reading.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $42,250 to the Kutztown University Small Business Development Center to deliver free consulting, financial literacy and digital services to help entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $40,500 to Hannah\u2019s Hope Ministries to address housing instability, poverty and underemployment by providing financial education, career mentoring, case management and transportation support for women with children.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $39,000 to Centro Hispano Daniel Torres Center for the purchase of milk for youth and seniors served by the Feeding Families program.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $32,500 to Boyertown Area Multi-Service for case management that connects low-income individuals in Boyertown and Pottstown to resources.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $26,000 to Berks Encore to help seniors throughout Berks facing food insecurity, chronic disease and isolation.<\/p>\n
\u2022 $6,500 to Alvernia University for its Jumpstart Reading program to train residents to become small-scale real estate developers focused on remediating blighted properties and revitalizing distressed neighborhoods throughout Reading and Berks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eighteen projects in Berks County have been awarded a total of nearly $2.9 million in state tax credits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,139,28,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-310862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}