Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer launches foundation for youth. ‘There will not be a shortage of need’
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer announced Monday a new foundation in which he will raise money to provide the city’s young people with scholarships and travel opportunities.
Dyer’s new One Fresno Foundation kicked off Monday with he and his wife, Diane, giving $25,000 and CalViva Health giving $20,000.
“Our youth are truly the leaders of today, and it is incumbent that we invest in them. And we are going to,” Dyer said at a news conference at Fresno City Hall. “That investment, I’m confident, will pay big dividends now and well into the future as a result of what we’re going to do.”
Dyer said the foundation will focus on providing young people from underserved neighborhoods with opportunities they might not otherwise have through scholarships for college, trade school or the police academy. Dyer said the foundation also will provide young people opportunities to visit college campuses. He hopes the foundation will also give a boost to local organizations already working with young people.
Later, Dyer said he intends to announce public-private partnerships in which the foundation will be involved.
The concept for the foundation is similar to the foundation he created for the Fresno Police Department when he was chief. Those fundraising efforts helped pay for police dogs, a SWAT vehicle and the Real Time Crime Center.
The team leading the foundation will include several staffers from Dyer’s administration, including Deputy Mayor Matthew Grundy, Chief of Staff Tim Orman, Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Montelongo and Assistant Communications Director Fabiola Ramirez.
“There will not be a shortage of need in our community, as we know,” Dyer said. “We have a very poor community. We have kids that grow up in environments that ultimately cause them to end up in gangs or a lifestyle of crime. We want to break that cycle. We will break that cycle, and a part of that is going to be through the One Fresno Foundation.”