100 Best Communities For Young People

Salisbury/Wicomico County Honored As An America’s Promise Alliance’s 100 Best Communities For Young People For The Sixth Time; Celebration at Prince Street School

Prince Street Elementary students celebrated Wednesday with community leaders and school system representatives as they learned together during a live webcast that Salisbury/Wicomico County has been named an America’s Promise Alliance’s 100 Best Communities for Young People presented by ING for the sixth time.

The national award was given to Salisbury/Wicomico County to recognize its outstanding and innovative work in addressing the high school dropout crisis and for its programs and services that make it an outstanding place for youth to live, learn and grow. Salisbury/Wicomico County was one of just 19 six-time winners of the award. Salisbury/Wicomico County will receive a $2,500 grant, signage identifying the community as one of the nation’s 100 Best Communities for Young People, and access to America’s Promise Alliance’s community development resources.

In its sixth year, the 100 Best Communities competition experienced its greatest interest to date with nominations from more than 320 communities representing all 50 states, Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. A list of all 2012 winners can be found at AmericasPromise.org/100Best.

Salisbury/Wicomico County continues to make youth a priority by emphasizing programs that provide young people and their families with the tools necessary to learn and grow. The Wicomico Partnership for Families and Children is a cross-sector collaboration of 20 organizational members ranging from child-serving agencies to business and community funders. The programs serve more than 1,000 youth annually through mentoring, gang intervention programs, after-school activities and family workshops. The Wicomico Mentoring Project, which matches students with volunteer mentors for local businesses and civic organizations, helped 99 percent of mentored seniors graduate last year. In addition, summer programs such as Salisbury Horizons offer students from low-income families the opportunity to participate in academic, cultural and recreational programs.

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