Program areas at GCF
Pennsylvania opportunity scholarship tax credit program:the program provides tax credits to eligible businesses contributing to an opportunity scholarship organization. Business contributions are then used by opportunity scholarship organizations to provide tuition assistance in the form of scholarships to eligible students residing within the boundaries of a low-achieving school in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to attend another public school outside of their district or nonpublic school. A low-achieving school is defined as a public elementary or secondary school ranking in the bottom 15 percent of their designation as an elementary or secondary school based upon combined math and reading Pennsylvania system of school assessment (pssa) scores.the Girard College Foundation is an opportunity scholarship organization and used these proceeds to provide approximately 80 partial scholarships to students that attended Girard College during the 2023-2024 school year.
Artist in residence program - ""be holding":be holding , an original performance using ross gay's book-length poem by the same name as a libretto/text, meditates on three impactful themes: black flight, black genius, and looking . The poem structures itself around the famous lay-up by philadelphia 76ers leg endary mvp julius erving (aka "dr. J. ), a revered figure among philadelphia athletes/role models. Dr. j's balletic athleticism in the 1980 nba f inals--during which he flies for a seemingly impossibly long time before making that incredible shot--is "seen" through various lenses gay's 70-page, elegiac homage. The work's themes are particularly meaningful for Girard, where young people of color are spring boarded to seek "flight" from trauma: to College, a career, a way out of upbringings marked by poverty, hunger, homelessness, abuse, addiction, neglect, violence and incarceration. As there are approximately 120 students who are in high school at Girard College, all of them will ultimately either participate in or experience this program as a spectator. The project has two components: (1) a multi-year residency where the artists meet at Girard in the fall and spring each year for a short development residency that will involve students of all ages engaged as improvisors, documentarians, writers and/or performers and (2) a fully-realized production run of an evening -length through-scored live performance.
Pennsylvania educational improvement tax credit program:this program provides tax credits to eligible businesses contributing to scholarship organizations and/or educational improvement organizations and/or pre-k scholarship organizations contained on a list published by the department of community and economic development. Business contributions are then used by scholarship organizations and/or educational improvement organizations and/or pre-k scholarship organizations to provide tuition assistance in the form of scholarships to eligible students residing within the commonwealth of pennsylvania.the Girard College Foundation is a scholarship organization and used these proceeds to provide approximately fifteen (15) partial scholarships to students that attended Girard College during the 2023-2024 school year.