In The News

The August Wilson Center for African American Culture will soon move away from mostly being a rental space operated by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. A $300,000 AWC Programming Fund has been launched in the past two years to support local artists’ projects at the center and to aid the resurrection.

The ongoing resurrection of the AWC, a two-story, 63,200 square-foot venue at the edge of the Downtown Pittsburgh Cultural District, is moving at a “deliberate” pace said, Max King, Pittsburgh Foundation president and CEO. Its current status is largely as a rental facility being operated and programmed by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.  

Tracey McCants Lewis, an assistant clinical professor at the Duquesne University School of Law, has been named to a three-year term on the board of the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh. A 2005 recipient of Pittsburgh Magazine’s "40 Under 40 Award" and the New Pittsburgh Courier’s "Fabulous 40" award, McCants Lewis teaches in Duquesne’s Civil Rights Clinic and Unemployment Compensation Clinic, where her research focuses on critical race theory, feminist legal theory, legal storytelling in clinical legal education, and re-entry justice.

In February, students and community residents bought enough supplies to help more than 150 K-12 students in need. The last 50 backpacks were filled after an anonymous $2,500 check from a Pittsburgh Foundation trust.

Though mammals adapted on land, a new study by Maria Chikina and Nathan Clark has shown that during three major independent evolutionary events, a number of mammals harkened back to the sea. The study was supported by a Charles E. Kaufman New Investigator Award from The Pittsburgh Foundation, an NIH grant from the NHGRI, and a Research Experience for Undergraduates grant funded by NSF and the DOD.  

As signs throughout the crowd of about 200 pointed out, passage of last year's state budget was delayed by 267 days, causing funding problems for municipalities, schools and social service programs.

Mila Sanina, deputy managing editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and a digital media innovator, has been named the new executive director of PublicSource, the Pittsburgh investigative reporting website, the PublicSource Board of Directors announced Wednesday. PublicSource is a nonprofit organization founded in 2011. Supporters include The Pittsburgh Foundation.   

What do you do when you see your community is in trouble? Do you stand up and fight for what’s right? [Article includes photos of  Pittsburgh Foundation board member Evan Frasier.]  

The August Wilson Center for African American Culture is poised to make a comeback. Eighteen months after narrowly escaping foreclosure, the debt-free center is on track to finish 2016 in the black.

Education activists such as Point Breeze parent Ali Patterson worry that taking foundation money could “reduce the power of an elected school board to hire and evaluate the superintendent.” “We’re really not doing anything behind the scenes,” countered Pittsburgh Foundation president and CEO Maxwell King. “People may perceive us to be meddling, but we’re active because we care so much about education.”