M&T Bank donates $100,000 to OCC’s applied learning program

ONONDAGA, N.Y. — M&T Bank (NYSE: MTB) has donated $100,000 over five years to support the applied learning program of Onondaga Community College’s (OCC) career services office.

The funding will help pay for an applied learning program coordinator, OCC announced. M&T made the donation to the OCC Foundation.

The applied learning program coordinator will serve as a liaison between students, faculty, and employers to “promote and facilitate experiential education opportunities.” The initiative also includes helping students prepare for jobs upon graduation.

Examples of such preparation include job-search strategies, along with assistance with résumés, cover letters, interviewing techniques, and understanding employer expectations, OCC said.

“Internships and job shadows provide students with critical on-the-job work experience and helps area employers connect with new workers to fill jobs,” Allen Naples, regional president of M&T Bank, said in a statement. “By exposing students to the many opportunities for working and living in Central New York, OCC’s applied learning program is a great asset in all of our efforts to expand out labor force and grow our economy.”

Buffalo–based M&T Bank Corp. (NYSE: MTB) has 45 branches and employs nearly 500 people in its Central New York region, which includes Onondaga, Cayuga, Oswego, Madison, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Oneida, and Seneca Counties. It holds the largest share of deposits in the Syracuse metro area and the broader 16-county Central New York region that CNYBJ covers.

OCC’s career services office works to help students decide what they want to major in and what they want to do after they earn their degree, the school said. Career-services specialists work closely with the college’s departments, local employers, and community organizations to help place OCC students into careers,

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com