07/20/2017
Gwen’s Girls named Champion in Action in Violence Prevention category
Citizens Bank, WPXI-TV and Trib Total Media provide $35,000 funding, public relations and volunteer support
PITTSBURGH - Citizens Bank, WPXI-TV and Trib Total Media announced Gwen’s Girls, a non-profit dedicated to empowering girls and young women, as a 2017 Champion in Action® in the category of violence prevention. Gwen’s Girls will receive $35,000 in unrestricted funding and extensive promotional and volunteer support for its outstanding work.
Gwen’s Girls helps girls and young women realize their strengths and build a pathway for success by providing holistic, gender-specific programs, education and experiences. The organization focuses on serving girls and families living in neighborhoods with high rates of poverty, crime and violence. Gwen’s Girls has served close to 4,000 girls through prevention, reunification, school and community-based programs and services.
The organization will use the Champions in Action award to deliver their Making Positive Life Choices (MPLC) program in middle and high schools in the Pittsburgh Public, Penn Hills, Woodland Hills and Clairton school districts. MPLC utilizes a gender-specific curriculum to address challenges girls deal with in peer relationships, family life and school, with a focus on positive self-esteem and body image, healthy and unhealthy relationships and bullying.
Champions in Action is part of Citizens Helping Citizens Strengthen Communities, the bank’s program designed to enhance quality of life and economic vitality in local communities. It provides support for small nonprofit organizations to recognize their contributions to communities throughout the Pittsburgh area.
“Gwen Elliott was an inspiration to young women throughout the Pittsburgh area,” said Mark T. Latterner, market president for Western Pennsylvania, Citizens Bank. “Her vision of helping girls become self-sufficient adults continues to live on, and Citizens is proud to honor Gwen’s Girls as a Champion in Action.”
“WPXI-TV is honored to present this award to Gwen’s Girls with Citizens Bank and Trib Total Media,” said Ray Carter, general manager of WPXI-TV. “Gwen’s Girls is an impressive organization working to empower young women. We are thrilled to lend our support and to spotlight their great work in our region.”
To date, the Champions in Action program has awarded 317 nonprofits more than $8.6 million in contributions and promotional support.
“We are grateful to Citizens, WPXI-TV and Trib Total Media for naming Gwen’s Girls as a Champion in Action,” said Kathi R. Elliott, executive director, Gwen’s Girls. “We are committed to assisting girls in recognizing their inherent strengths and resilience to overcome barriers. Girls are our present and future Champions.”
As a Champion in Action, Gwen’s Girls will receive:
- a $35,000 contribution in unrestricted funds from Citizens Bank;
- public relations support including media coverage from WPXI-TV and Trib Total Media, including public service announcements and television profiles;
- volunteer support from Citizens Bank, WPXI-TV, Trib Total Media and colleagues from Pittsburgh Cares at Gwen’s Girls events;
- the opportunity for the organization’s executive director to participate in an “Executive-to-Executive” mentorship with a Citizens Bank executive;
- promotional support highlighting the Champion in Action in Citizens Bank branches;
- exposure on the Citizens Bank, WPXI-TV and Trib Total Media websites.
For more information about the Citizens Bank and WPXI-TV Champions in Action program, visit www.citizensbank.com/community/champions.
About Citizens Financial Group, Inc.
Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest financial institutions, with $150.3 billion in assets as of March 31, 2017. Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Citizens offers a broad range of retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, large corporations and institutions. In Consumer Banking, Citizens helps its retail customers “bank better” with mobile and online banking, a 24/7 customer contact center and the convenience of approximately 3,200 ATMs and approximately 1,200 Citizens Bank branches in 11 states in the New England, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions. Citizens also provides wealth management, mortgage lending, auto lending, student lending and commercial banking services in select markets nationwide. In Commercial Banking, Citizens offers corporate, institutional and not-for-profit clients a full range of wholesale banking products and services including lending and deposits, capital markets, treasury services, foreign exchange and interest hedging, leasing and asset finance, specialty finance and trade finance.
Citizens operates through its subsidiaries Citizens Bank, N.A. and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania as Citizens Bank, Citizens Commercial Banking and Citizens One. Additional information about Citizens and its full line of products and services can be found at www.citizensbank.com.
About WPXI-TV
WPXI is the Cox Media Group TV station in the Pittsburgh television market. Cox Media Group is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of Cox Reps. Additionally, CMG owns and operates Valpak, one of North America’s leading direct marketing companies. The company operations include 15 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 86 radio stations, eight daily newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services. CMG operates in more than 30 media markets and reaches approximately 52 million Americans weekly, including 30 million TV viewers, more than 4 million print and online newspaper readers, and 18 million radio listeners. WPXI-TV’s website is wpxi.com.
About Trib Total Media
Trib Total Media is a multimedia network of daily and weekly newspapers, weekly shoppers, and websites delivering news, information and advertising to over 1.2 million readers across Western Pennsylvania every week. Trib Total Media’s targeted direct mail, promotional products, commercial printing, media planning and digital services deliver a variety of marketing solutions for advertisers big and small. In addition, Trib Total Media has formed strategic partnerships with community and non-profit organizations across the region, enabling Trib Total Media to conTRIBute and make a positive impact in the communities they serve. Visit TribTotalMedia.com and discover how we do things right. Here.
About Pittsburgh Cares
Founded in 1992, the mission of Pittsburgh Cares is to maximize the impact of our nonprofit partners and to advance a culture of volunteerism and civic engagement in the Pittsburgh region. Firmly believing that the collective efforts of volunteers can transform an entire city, we provide opportunities for adults, youth, businesses, and nonprofit organizations to connect and serve together to address pressing social needs. As the largest volunteer agency in the Pittsburgh region, Pittsburgh Cares offers more than 20,000 volunteer positions each year. We offer a free public resource that connects the general public to hundreds of one-time and skills-based service projects per month. We also constantly strive to offer programs that strategically maximize volunteer time and provide high-quality service experiences, moving Pittsburgh closer to the day when everyone is inspired and equipped to be the change they wish to see in the world.
