GM Foundation Awards $2.5 Million to Focus: HOPE

The General Motors Foundation has announced a $2.5 million grant to Focus: HOPE to help boost the number of minority students and women earning engineering degrees.

Awarded to the FOCUS Hope Fund, a community-based campaign to raise $100 million for the Detroit-based organization, the grant will support the Center for Advanced Technologies (CAT) program, which gives students who may not have access to a college education an opportunity to gain an engineering degree at select universities while also earning a salary through internships with area employers and its own research and development projects. Since 1981, when the organization launched its first job training program, nearly twelve thousand students have graduated from Focus: HOPE job training programs.

The grant was announced at the Light for Hope Eleanor M. Josaitis Tribute dinner, which raised nearly $3 million in honor of the organization's co-founder, Eleanor Josaities, who died last August at the age of 79. The grant brings the GM Foundation's total support for FOCUS Hope to more than $3.8 million.

"Through our $2.5 million grant to Focus: HOPE, the General Motors Foundation continues its long-standing support of the organization's education initiatives," said Diana Tremblay, chief manufacturing officer at GM and a FOCUS Hope board member. "This grant will continue the important work that Eleanor Josaitis began, and it will allow Focus: HOPE to continue its education programs that positively impact thousands in the Detroit community each year."

“GM Foundation Grants $2.5 Million to Focus: HOPE.” General Motors Press Release 3/12/12.

Primary Subject: Education
Secondary Subject(s): Higher Education, Science/Technology
Location(s): Detroit, Michigan

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