YWCA Young Mothers Program Receives Grant

DULUTH, Minn. — The YWCA Duluth’s Spirit Valley Young Mothers Program works with homeless mothers who are between the ages of 16 and 21. Each at-risk mother and their child who are a part of the program live at the YWCA for a year to a year and a half.

While in the mentoring program mothers receive stable housing and support. The purpose is to help these mothers prepare for moving out on their own and taking care of themselves and their child.

A grant from AT&T for $15,000 will be used to create a new program that will be introduced next year to focus on online safety.

Amanda Seabaugh the VP & General Manage for AT&T Northern Plains Market said, “The Young Mothers Program is a great, great program here that supports young mothers. And so we are going to be providing, you know, this grant and money for them to be able to go and provide online training and data literacy training to help educate the young mothers and children on how to, you know, be safe on the internet.”

The Executive Director of the Duluth YWCA, Beth Burt, is proud that AT&T worked with the YWCA to create the new program.   The classes were designed specifically with the Young Mothers Program in mind.

Beth Burt, Executive Director of YWCA Duluth said “So AT&T, it was really a partnership. I mean we did in fact, write a grant. But wrote it together, we came up with the idea together, we wrote it together. And I think the thing I really loved about working with AT&T is that they really cared a lot about what the young moms would actually want and be usable for them.”

In addition to the online safety for parents class there will be courses on digital literacy basics and online safety to prevent sex trafficking. The three courses will be offered twice in 2024.