Friends of the Web

The Learning Web has a history of 53 years of youth services, within Ithaca/Tompkins County. The Learning Web throughout its history has been empowering youth to make informed choices in terms of careers, learning life skills to better navigate life, and supporting youth journeys through crises/tough times. Hopefully, youth are more informed, more resilient, more knowledgeable, and stronger after experiencing the services/programs of the Learning Web.

2025 has brought some amazing things to fruition including:

• Learning Web becoming fully staffed across the entire agency.
• Learning Web receiving various foundation grants to broaden its capacity to provide emergency meals, transportation, and hygiene products.
• Secured five year expanded funding for or Supporting Strong Families (SSF) program.
• Applied for and received funding for an ESSHI program in Varna, NY in 2026.

Along with the above-stated accomplishments, 2025 has also presented various challenges including:

• Loss of grant funding for our over 15-year-old Transitional Living Program.
• Shuffling grant funding requirements and reporting requirements from some funders.
• Increased oversight, paperwork, reporting.
• Fragile funding environment.

Contributions/donations of any size/amount go a long way in assisting our agency in providing the diverse services and programs offered to some of Tompkins County’s most vulnerable youth. Please give.

Please remember your assistance helps provide various services from career exploration, apprenticeships, volunteer opportunities and job attainment services in our YEP program, housing and related case management services in our Youth Outreach programs, to assisting youth aging out of foster care, youth transitioning to adulthood, young parents and advocacy for youth experiencing crisis in their lives through our Life Skills and Supporting Strong Families programs.

With gratitude,

Olan Mack

Executive Director, The Learning Web