A generous gift: St. Martin of Tours School administrators and students join AgustaWestland Philadelphia CEO Bill Hunt during a recent check presentation ceremony.
AgustaWestland has donated $100,000 to St. Martin of Tours School, an Independence Mission School located at 5450 Roosevelt Blvd. in Oxford Circle.
School administrators and students recently joined AgustaWestland Philadelphia CEO Bill Hunt for a visit and check presentation ceremony.
The contribution was made through the state of Pennsylvania’s Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) program, and administered by Business Leaders Organized for Catholic Schools (BLOCS), an Opportunity Scholarship organization.
The OSTC allows businesses to make contributions and direct business tax dollars in a way that positively impacts students and schools within their community. The contributions are used by Opportunity Scholarship organizations to provide tuition assistance in the form of scholarships to eligible students, allowing them to attend nonpublic schools such as St. Martin of Tours.
AgustaWestland, a helicopter manufacturer at 3050 Red Lion Road whose parent company is based in Italy, will receive a tax credit of 90 percent of the contribution, to be applied against the company’s state tax liability.
AgustaWestland plans to augment its donation through a partnership with students and teachers at St. Martin of Tours, in order to cultivate the future leaders of engineering and advanced manufacturing in Philadelphia.
These initiatives will allow students to gain exposure to the practical applications of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) within aviation. They will also integrate aviation principles into the schools’ curriculum, and the company will provide supplementary materials to teachers as they create lesson plans.
AgustaWestland Philadelphia operates out of a 275,000-square-foot facility, on a 39-acre site at Northeast Philadelphia Airport, providing employment for nearly 600 people.
The Philadelphia facility also includes final assembly lines for the AW119Kx and AW139 helicopters, a parts supply depot for the Americas and a fully approved U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and European Joint Aviation Authorities repair station.
AgustaWestland Philadelphia also performs helicopter customization, has a delivery center for AW109 Power and GrandNew aircraft, and provides maintenance services for customer aircraft based in the local area. ••
