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New Donors Bring More Scholarships To Pittsburgh Promise

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The Pittsburgh Promise today announced the Grable Foundation has pledged an additional $5 million to the scholarship program, bringing its total gift to $10 million and the amount raised by the Promise to about $167.2 million.

The nonprofit, which provides scholarships to students enrolled in Pittsburgh Public Schools, started the second phase of its capital campaign.

Community leaders, donors and school district officials gathered at Google's Bakery Square offices in East Liberty to hear about the progress of the scholarship program.

During the meeting, Executive Director Saleem Ghubril showed data on scholar retention rates.

It shows promise scholars meet or exceed American College Testing national rates for every institution type.

"They are persisting from year one," said Ghubril, "we're delighted by who they are and how well they're doing."

Eighty-four percent of scholarship recipients during the past five years have had grade point averages above the minimum requirement of 2.5, with 52 percent of recipients having a GPA of 3.0 or higher.

So far, about 700 have graduated from two-year or four-year programs.

One of those students will soon be Jahmiah Guillory.

He will be the first person in his family to graduate college and is majoring in petroleum and natural gas engineering at Penn State.

"Lord only knows where I would be without the promise," Guillory said. "This scholarship organization, this incentive to do well, this notion of community that's implied we can not do well. The Promise helps reiterate that there is hope for communities such as Northview heights to do well."

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