The FAST Fund is a seven-year-old non-profit organization that provides quick, financial assistance to Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) students experiencing economic emergencies, so they stay enrolled and graduate.

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An alarming 20% of MATC’s students are homeless during the year, and close to 50% are food insecure. While most MATC students work, most are employed in low-wage, part-time occupations. As a result, almost 70% qualify for Pell Grants.

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When Pell Grants were established, they covered 100% of the cost of attendance at a two- year college like MATC.  Today, they cover barely 60%.  When students are laid off, work hours are reduced, or a vehicle breaks down, they struggle to remain enrolled. The pandemic has only increased the challenges.

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The FAST Fund helped Nou, a first-generation American, in the Respiratory Therapy program. She wrote, “I would not have graduated without the FAST Fund’s support.” She recently returned to Milwaukee after volunteering on the front lines fighting the COVID pandemic in Newark, New Jersey, Miami, and Brownville, Texas.

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The FAST Fund helped twenty-six students its first year of operations. One of them was Angel Vega.  Not only did he graduate, but he was hired as an educational assistant at the very MPS grade school he attended as a child. He continues to work there as a substitute teacher while MPS is paying for him to pursue his teaching degree.