Grant from the CSX Corporation provides opportunity for life-changing career exploration and training for abused and neglected children

Carolina Youth Development Center (CYDC) has received a $10,000 grant from the CSX Corporation, an international transportation company headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. These funds will provide partial support for a six-week Summer Biz Camp program to be operated in the Linda and Tony Bakker Career Center on CYDC’s North Charleston campus. The Summer Biz Camp is in operation from June 20 to August 5, 2011.

The Bakker Career Center provides personal development and academic support programs, and leadership and career technology training. The participants are children and youth in shelters and group home care at CYDC. 

“The young people who come to live with us at CYDC have suffered great personal trauma from abuse, neglect or abandonment. We offer them a safe, supportive environment designed to encourage and empower their transition to independent adulthood,” said Barbara Kelley Duncan, CEO of CYDC. 

The Summer Biz Camp Program will serve all CYDC resident students on campus, placing targeted emphasis on students who are behind grade level and/or who have been identified as needing reading and math support. The program will be led by a certified teacher with the assistance of three support staff, with an emphasis on reading and math, as well as career and life transition skills.

“CSX has made an investment in the future of our community by making this grant to our Bakker Career Center for its summer Biz Camp Program, which provides educational assistance, job training, leadership development and life skills. The youth who benefit will one day be the leaders of our local businesses and organizations, thanks to CSX’s corporate support of programs like ours that prepare at-risk youth for independence,” said Ms.Kelley Duncan.

Founded as the Charleston Orphan House in 1790, Carolina Youth Development Center (CYDC) manages nine programs dedicated to housing and supporting the victims of child abuse and improving life opportunities for at-risk youth in the tri-county area of Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties. CYDC serves over 600 children annually. For more information or to learn about volunteer opportunities at CYDC, visit http://www.cydc.org, or call (843) 266-5200.