Pittsburg, PA
Pittsburgh Promise holds celebration for nearly 1,000 graduating seniors
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — About 1,000 graduating seniors from Pittsburgh Public Schools celebrated the journey to higher education on Tuesday.
It’s a big decision when it comes to life after high school graduation, but a group of students from underserved communities who gathered at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall on Tuesday worked hard to make that dream come true.
Each graduating student gets $20,000 for four years to use at any accredited post-secondary institution in Pennsylvania.
“I’m going to have a lot of my family here and I’m very happy about graduating,” said Westinghouse Academy senior Sai Penn.
The Pittsburgh Promise held a big Senior Celebration Day for nearly 1,000 graduating seniors from Pittsburgh Public at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall to mark the occasion for these student’s post-graduation plans.
Pittsburgh Promise coaches work inside four PPS schools, including Carrick, UPREP at Milliones, Perry and Westinghouse.
Penn said to her coach, “Thank you so much for all the help you’ve given me. I’m very much grateful for it.”
Coaches make sure students have personalized post-high school plans.
“It feels good to support students with their dreams, it feels good to be their coach and help them figure out what they want to do with their life aspirations,” said Promise coach Emmanuel Walker.
Each student has a minimum GPA of 2.5 and an attendance of 90%. Collectively, The Pittsburgh Promise recipients can attend more than 150 institutions of higher learning.
“The Pittsburgh Promise is not the organization, nor the scholarship, nor the coaching — the Pittsburgh Promise is the child,” said The Pittsburgh Promise Executive Director Saleem Ghurbril.
Preparing for, planning for and paying for higher education — that’s the promise kept for more than 1,000 students in the city.
The Pittsburgh Promise will continue funding students with scholarships through the graduating class of 2028, which carries them through 2033. After that, they will work on policy work as well as continue coaching.
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Pittsburg, PA
Pittsburgh is the 36th best place to live in the U.S., according to new U.S. News & World Report
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Since Pittsburgh was declared the nation’s most livable city by Rand McNally in 1985, we’ve kind of paid close attention to these kinds of rankings.
U.S. News and World Report has released its new listing of the best places to live, and Pittsburgh has landed at #36 on the list of 150 cities.
“#36 overall which is really incredible,” said Erika Giovanetti.
There are a lot of categories included in the rankings where Pittsburgh is listed #1. If this was a beauty contest, Pittsburgh would be near the top with its Golden Triangle and the confluence of its three rivers, but U.S. News and World Report looks deeper, so brace yourself.
“Pittsburgh is ranked #23 for quality of life, which includes the #13 health ranking and the #12 for establishment ratio for the number of bars and restaurants per capita,” said Giovanetti.
That’s right, our foodie scene ranks up there on a per-person basis.
“Pittsburgh outranks a lot of much larger cities for that at #12,” Giovanetti said, mentioning Los Angeles and New York by comparison.
The report says that Pittsburgh is the 10th best place to retire.
Giovanetti, who is an Oakmont native, says that the healthcare ranking at #13 doesn’t surprise her.
“We have UPMC and the wonderful health care system that comes along with it,” said Giovanetti. “And that’s just that health index that we have. It is overall access to quality health care.”
When people are asked which cities they would see themselves living in the most, Pittsburgh did not fare well in that category.
But when disaster strikes, Pittsburgh is one place you want to live.
“Pittsburgh ranked number one in the country for FEMA risk,” Giovanetti said. “So, what FEMA risk determines is the, I guess, the risk of natural disaster and how resilient a city is to handling those disasters.”
For those keeping score, Cincinnati was listed #100, Baltimore was ranked #118, and Cleveland was ranked #141 out of the 150 cities.
U.S. News’ top 10 best cities to live in the U.S. are below. Click here for the full list.
- Naples, Florida
- Boise, Idaho
- Colorado Springs, Colorado
- Greenville, South Carolina
- Charlotte, North Carolina
- Raleigh, North Carolina
- Huntsville, Alabama
- Virginia Beach, Virginia
- Austin, Texas
- Boulder, Colorado
Pittsburg, PA
How a gun from a police department in New Jersey turned up at a crime scene in Pittsburgh
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