(Butler, PA) The Butler County Community College Education Foundation has received the largest Pennsylvania Educational Improvement Tax Credit contribution since its first in 2012 and from the Cranberry Township-based MSA Safety, an international developer and manufacturer of advanced safety products.

MSA Safety’s $50,000 gift will support a BC3 program that enables sophomores through seniors to earn affordable and transferrable credits in college courses instructed at their high school or learning centers, and benefit a game played by pupils as young as fourth-graders that increases financial literacy.

The state Department of Community and Economic Development lists 880 approved educational improvement organizations in Pennsylvania, including eight in Butler County. MSA Safety’s corporate giving and community support committee selected BC3 after the company’s application to participate in the EITC program was granted.

MSA Safety focuses its support primarily on organizations located in regions where the company operates and where its employees live, according to Glennis Williams, vice president and chief human resource officer at MSA Safety in Cranberry Township.

“It’s truly a win-win for the college and for MSA”

Additionally, “companies like MSA recognize that cultivating a quality workforce is one of the top business challenges for any organization,” Williams said. “MSA is always looking for talent coming out of our region’s universities and technical schools.

“Establishing a relationship with Butler County Community College provides us with a new community touch point that enhances our ability to recruit the next generation of talent locally while helping BC3 students find meaningful and well-paying career opportunities in manufacturing that keep them right here in western Pennsylvania. It’s truly a win-win for the college and for MSA.”

Mikayla Moretti is executive director of the BC3 Education Foundation and external relations.

“A very generous gift,” Moretti said about MSA Safety’s contribution. “One like this allows the foundation and the college to create opportunities and have something for everyone. It will have a very big impact and can support a lot of students.”

“I feel pretty good about the way I am starting”

BC3’s College Within the High School program expanded this fall to include Slippery Rock Area High in Butler County and to West Middlesex Area Junior-Senior High in Mercer County.

Reduced-tuition college-level courses are also being offered this fall at participating high schools in Armstrong, Clarion, Clearfield, Jefferson and Lawrence counties, according to James Frank, BC3’s assistant director of high school programming.

Ten courses this fall are being offered for the first time at Butler Senior High and include French I and II, Spanish I and II, introduction to computer programming with JAVA and trigonometry and functions.

Tuition and fees cost $225 for a three-credit BC3 course instructed Monday through Friday at a Butler County high school or learning center during its regular hours, and $250 for a high school or learning center outside of Butler County during its regular hours.

“I do know many people who are in college who have huge debt,” said Alaina Daily, a Butler Senior High School senior enrolled as an Early College Pioneer as part of a BC3 College Within the High School program instructed on the college’s main campus in Butler Township. “I feel pretty good about the way I am starting. And when I do go to college after my high school career, I will already have those credits.”

“They start to learn about personal finance”

BC3’s Professor David C. Huseman Center for Economic Education administers a 30-week Stock Market Game that begins in September, and 10-week competitions in the fall and spring.

Fourth-graders through high school seniors competing in the game receive a hypothetical $100,000, make buy-and-trade decisions and track how those decisions would have played out in the market had they been real, Huseman said.

BC3’s Stock Market Game drew 1,547 students on 482 teams from 33 schools in Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Clearfield, Elk, Jefferson, Lawrence and Mercer counties in 2024-2025, according to Huseman.

The college recognized teams that were place-winners at an awards ceremony May 6 in Founders Hall on BC3’s main campus in Butler Township.

A team from Butler Intermediate placed first in the Western Region and second in Pennsylvania among middle schools in the fall 2024 competition. Phoenix Fancher, Cheza Harbaugh, Brielle Myers, Maxwell Oddo and Hunter Ryan ended the game with an equity of $141,110.29.

Luke Daubenspeck, Schaney Kamerer, Adelynn Miller, Kendall Rose and River Wolfgram were members of a Butler Intermediate team that finished second in the region and third in the state in the fall middle school competition with an equity of $140,521.23.

“They start to learn about personal finance and investing early, which is important so that your money has time to grow,” said Jamie Veltri, a family and consumer sciences teacher at Butler Intermediate and adviser of both teams.

“Before I had access to this game, I was trying to figure out how I would introduce the stock market to my students. So once I found out BC3 would make it possible to participate in this Stock Market Game, it just opened up so many more lessons I could teach about finance and investing.”

The game engaged her sixth-graders, Veltri said.

“I put the rankings up on the board and they could see how their money was growing,” Veltri said. “Then we look up specific stocks to see which ones were making money and then we would talk about why.”

A team from Seneca Valley placed second in the region in the fall high school competition. Bryce Fredericks, Abby Hock, Landon Newton and Alyssa Westrom finished with an equity of $144,173.55.

Pennsylvania’s EITC program provides tax credits to eligible businesses that contribute financially to a scholarship organization, to an educational improvement organization or to a pre-kindergarten scholarship organization.

The BC3 Education Foundation’s previous largest EITC contribution was $25,000. The foundation received $77,750 in EITC gifts in the 2024-2025 academic year. Its first EITC gift totaled $12,000 in 2012.