Inclusive Economic Growth Initiatives are well underway
March 30, 2022
The EDC and the Tampa Bay Economic Prosperity Foundation, the EDC’s 501 c 3 nonprofit sister organization, are making considerable progress on our efforts to bring career training awareness, jobs, and catalytic projects to East Tampa and other underserved communities in Hillsborough County. To date, we’ve raised $1.4 million of our $2 million Foundation capital campaign goal to fund these initiatives over the next three years. Thanks to the generosity of funders including TECO, JP Morgan Chase, DTCC, SouthState Bank, and many others, we’ve begun deploying these funds toward the betterment of our community.
Together with local planning firm GAI, the EDC will craft a vision plan for the East Tampa Industrial District. The planning process is expected to take up to eight months and will include strategies for infrastructure improvements, business development and real estate development opportunities. A key task for the team, which will be led by EDC Director of Community Development Tony Brown, will be to identify the ideal location for USF’s Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute and the Black Business Investment Fund’s Makers Space. These two projects will serve as education and training anchors to grow small and medium manufacturing businesses in the area. HCC has also committed to assist in the planning process and support the project with training programs as well.
The Foundation’s career awareness campaign is also gaining steam. ChappellRoberts, the local advertising agency engaged to help craft a highly targeted campaign aimed at educating East Tampa residents about short term training and certification opportunities in high demand information technology, healthcare and trade professions, has completed its focus group research and design discovery process. Together with the team at DiamondView, they are in the process of building out the outreach campaign creative and the deployment strategy.
Lastly, we are excited to report that thanks to a generous $25,000 gift provided by AT&T, our Foundation will provide 13 disadvantaged students enrolled in HCC Cybersecurity programs with scholarships to help pay their tuition. We’ll recognize these students and thank our partners at AT&T and HCC in May, and hope that this celebration is the first of many to come.
I am truly grateful to our Investors and partners who have stepped up to support the Foundation and our Inclusive Economic Growth Initiative. If you’d like to help us as we pursue our mission to bring better job opportunities and transformational projects to underserved communities in Hillsborough County, I’d be happy to share how you can get involved.
Thank you,
Craig
