MUSCATINE — United Way of Muscatine and 21 other recipients have been awarded grants in the second round of the Employer Innovation Fund.
Gov. Kim Reynolds announced $568,000 in awards Tuesday. The Employer Innovation Fund is a matching grant that helps Iowa employers provide post-secondary training and education opportunities to employees, in an effort to fuel innovation and help increase the number of good-paying and high demand jobs. It is administered through Future Ready Iowa.
“Future Ready Iowa provides Iowans with life-changing opportunities while simultaneously helping employers grow their local workforce talent pipeline,” said Gov. Reynolds.
United Way of Muscatine was awarded $26,715 for a school-based collaboration among the Community Foundation, Public Health, NCSA and City Housing. Resource navigators stationed at Muscatine schools will target students whose families may be struggling financially and may be in search of more financially viable careers.
Local community businesses such as the Community Foundation, UnityPoint Trinity Foundation, Muscatine Community College, United Way, Kent Foundation will help match this amount.
“The state was so interested in what we were doing that they invited us to resubmit for more funds to help more families,” said Kim Warren, the United Way Director of Aligned Impact in Muscatine County.