Some exciting new program enhancements and funding partnerships are taking place at Cooke. Read more to learn about new developments with our partners at the Moody’s Foundation. We’re also thrilled to welcome the Taft Foundation as a new foundation partner!
Moody’s and Cooke Collaborate on a Research Project to Explore Career
Opportunities in the IT Industry for People with Special Needs
For 15 years, The Moody’s Corporation, and their philanthropy division, The Moody’s Foundation, have been longtime partners of ours. Over the years, they have supported several key programs at Cooke, including the creation of our internship program at the high school and SKILLs. Thanks to a generous grant from Moody’s, we are currently working together on an exciting new project. Moody’s and Cooke will be writing a White Paper together on the topic of neurodiversity within the IT industry, and ways to expand the scope of IT career opportunities to a broader range of people with special needs. We’ll be exploring new strategies to help develop IT and computer skills among our students and alumni and examine the best ways to create pathways toward employment and a broad range of post-secondary opportunities. We’ll publish the White Paper to share what we’ve learned and explore the possibility of creating a new computer-based learning program for Cooke students and/or alumni in the future. As part of this project, we are reaching out to a variety of educational, corporate, government and nonprofit entities as potential partners. So far, we have engaged colleagues at Job Path, the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, the CUNY Unlimited Program, Cisco and Moody’s, to discuss educational and vocational opportunities within the IT industry available to young adults with special needs. Stay tuned for new updates on our progress as we continue to work on this important research project.
———————————————————————-
New Grant from the Taft Foundation Helps Cooke Expand its Internship Program
The Taft Foundation, a new partner, recently awarded Cooke $100,000 to expand its internship program at the high school and SKILLs, and we are so excited to collaborate with them to bring new opportunities and resources to our high school and young adult students! The grant will help us hire new staff to support the high school internship program, recruit additional internship host sites and provide more training to the Community Inclusion Assistants who accompany students to their internship sites. We are thrilled to welcome The Taft Foundation to the Cooke community, and we look forward to working with them to help us meet the growing demand for internship, volunteer and community-based opportunities for our students.