Tioga Tae Kwon Do Academic Excellence Program and Knows How to collaborate to benefit many

Tioga Tae Kwon Do, in collaboration with the Community Foundation for the Twin Tiers, is excited to announce the creation of the TTKD Academic Excellence Program (AEP), which will provide financial support and resources focusing on improving educational opportunities in our community.

“Paul and Amanda Mittan have been working with the Community Foundation since 2012 when they established a scholarship, and now through an increased awareness of the need to reach students earlier they have started the TTKD Academic Excellence Fund that this year provides funding for social development, character building, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education with Snyder Elementary and Waverly High School,” said Suzanne Lee, president of the Community Foundation for the Twin Tiers.

“Amanda and I are extremely excited to work with the Community Foundation and our academic partners that helped make this program a reality. There’s a lot of momentum building in our community around creating opportunities for our youth, so it’s been exciting for us to help connect those dots,” said Paul Mittan, owner of Tioga Tae Kwon Do.  

Amanda Mittan added, “We are very thankful for all the continued support from our students, families, and friends at Tioga Tae Kwon Do that make this all possible.  We’re looking forward to expanding our program next year with other academic partners!”  In addition to Tioga Tae Kwon Do, the Lockheed Martin STEM Match Program also provided support for this fund.

In addition to the activities supported locally this year, the TTKD Academic Excellence Program will connect local students to engineering curriculums at Penn State University and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).  In the fall of 2018, a team of mechanical and electrical engineering students at Penn State supporting a TTKD AEP project met with Waverly students to share their experiences as engineers and hosted the team of Waverly students at their Fall Engineering Design Showcase at the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State University. This spring, a team of Software Engineering students from RIT will also be supporting a design project and will share their experiences with local TTKD AEP participants.

“All of this started with an idea and the willingness to give from Paul and Amanda and they drew on their own resources that included time and gifts as well as the resources they saw around them,” said Suzanne Lee, president of the Community Foundation for the Twin Tiers. 

She added, “They are very good examples of how to work with the Community Foundation for the Twin Tiers, the Waverly and Sayre School districts, the Penn State University, and Lockheed Martin. This is also smart philanthropy.”

For more information about the TTKD Academic Excellence Program, the TTKD Academic Scholarship Program or the Community Foundation for the Twin Tiers, visit www.TiogaTKD.com or www.TwinTiersCF.org.