BRIDGEPORT, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 14, 2026--
The Avangrid Foundation, the philanthropic arm of leading energy company Avangrid Inc., a member of the Iberdrola Group, today announced a $50,000 grant to Bridgeport Caribe Youth Leaders (BYCL) to support education, career readiness, entrepreneurship, trades training, and digital literacy programs for local middle and high school students. The foundation’s grant reflects its ongoing commitment to strengthening communities across Connecticut and creating pathways to opportunity for the next generation.
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"What makes this partnership especially meaningful is seeing the impact firsthand,” said Pablo Colón, Director of Corporate Citizenship and Executive Director of the Avangrid Foundation. “This week, we had the opportunity to meet local students participating in BCYL programs and hear about their goals and aspirations. Those conversations reinforce why the Avangrid Foundation invests in organizations like BCYL that are preparing students from the communities we serve to be the next generation of leaders, workers, and community members."
The announcement comes the same week as leaders from Avangrid and the Avangrid Foundation joined students and educators at a BYCL workforce development event in Bridgeport. During the visit, participants connected with students enrolled in BYCL’s college readiness and trades programs who heard firsthand from Moses Rams, Chief Line Officer for United Illuminating, an Avangrid company, about careers in the energy industry and skilled trades.
Announced during Hispanic Heritage Month, the investment supports an organization that reflects and serves the Bridgeport community, where more than 40% of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino. Through this partnership, the Avangrid Foundation is investing in an organization deeply rooted in Bridgeport that helps young people build the skills, confidence, and experience needed to pursue college, careers, or opportunities in the trades.
“Avangrid’s partnership represents an investment in the future of Bridgeport’s youth,” said John Torres, Executive Director of Bridgeport Caribe Youth Leaders. “We are grateful for Avangrid’s commitment and the engagement of its team members in exposing our students to career pathways, higher education, skilled trades, and workforce opportunities that will prepare them to thrive as the next generation of leaders and professionals.”
Funding from the Avangrid Foundation will support four education and job readiness programs offered to students at no cost, including: Students Understanding Career & College Expectations to Succeed (SUCCESS), Young Entrepreneurship Leadership (YELT), Trade Assessment Prep Program (TAPP), and Tech Explorers. Together, the programs help students develop practical workforce skills, explore career pathways, prepare for apprenticeships, strengthen digital literacy, and connect with mentors and industry professionals.
The grant is expected to directly benefit 75 students and indirectly support an additional 225 individuals through BCYL's career readiness and economic inclusion programming. Funds will support program facilitation, software and educational resources, student stipends, transportation to educational and workplace site visits, college tours, and driver's education opportunities that help remove barriers to employment.
About Avangrid Foundation: The Avangrid Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization that funds philanthropic investments that primarily impact communities where Avangrid, Inc. and its subsidiaries operate. Since 2001, the Avangrid Foundation and its predecessors have invested more than $45 million in partnerships that focus on building sustainable, vital and healthy communities; preserving cultural and artistic heritage; advancing education; and improving people’s lives. The Avangrid Foundation is committed to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in the United States. For more information, please visit https://www.avangrid.com/avangrid-foundation.
About Avangrid: Avangrid, Inc. is a leading U.S. energy company investing in grid infrastructure and power generation projects to deliver reliable energy and meet growing electricity demand. With approximately $50 billion in assets and operations across 25 states, Avangrid is helping modernize the U.S. electric grid, improve system resiliency, and support economic growth for the customers and communities it serves.
Avangrid owns and operates seven electric and natural gas utilities, serving more than 3.4 million customers in New York and New England. Avangrid also has nearly 100 energy generation facilities across the United States and more than 11 gigawatts of installed capacity. Avangrid has more than 8,300 employees and was named among the World's Most Ethical Companies in 2026 for the eighth consecutive year by the Ethisphere Institute. Avangrid is a member of the Iberdrola Group.
Pablo Colón (right), Director of Corporate Citizenship and Executive Director of the Avangrid Foundation, and Moses Rams (left), Chief Line Officer for United Illuminating, speaking to attendees at recent Bridgeport Caribe Youth Leaders event.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City lawmakers plan to ban horse-drawn carriages from Central Park, ending their more than 150-year run as an iconic, old-timey tourist attraction, following decades of opposition from animal welfare activists and the death of a teenage tourist last spring.
The City Council is expected to approve a bill next week that would end the rides by 2028. Three consecutive mayors had called for an end to the carriage rides because of safety concerns, only to have lawmakers yank back the reins.
A spokesperson for Julie Menin, the council speaker, confirmed the incoming vote and said the proposal had enough support to pass. Mayor Zohran Mamdani's office said he had reached a deal with the speaker on the legislation.
“The horse carriage industry is coming to an end in New York City,” Mamdani said in a social media post.
The latest push for a ban started in June, when 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan, visiting the city from India, died after jumping from a runaway horse carriage during a ride with family members. His death, which appeared to be the first fatality in a horse carriage accident since they were introduced in Central Park, reignited the debate over whether carriages, a romantic throwback to the city's past, have a place in a modern metropolis.
Mahajan's family has appeared at City Hall, in person and through videoconference calls from India, begging the city to finally end the rides.
“We are shattered, our whole family shattered. The pain does not go away,” his father, Deepak Mahajan, told city council members via a videocall during a hearing for the bill last summer, saying his son leapt from the carriage to try and help his mother, who was flung from her seat, after the horse bolted. “Every morning we wake up and think of nothing but the loss of our son.”
For decades, animal welfare activists and other critics have decried the carriage industry, arguing horses shouldn't be hauling tourists around busy streets and Central Park while having to navigate bustling traffic and gawking passersby. In the past, horses have collapsed, gotten startled and run off, hitting cars or other objects, with each accident resulting in fresh calls for a ban.
“The tragic and preventable death of 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan made clear that the status quo is no longer acceptable. Horse-drawn carriages have long been part of New York City’s history, but in an increasingly busy Central Park, this tradition has become a growing public safety liability,” Menin said in a statement.
The industry and its supporters have long cast the rides as a way for visitors to experience the New York they know from classic movies and television.
Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse danced into one of the carriages in “The Band Wagon.” Robert Redford and Jane Fonda rode one in “Barefoot in the Park.” Macaulay Culkin escaped bandits in a carriage in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”
“Taking a horse and carriage ride in New York City is one of the most iconic things to do in New York City and people from all over the world know about us and travel to New York to go to a carriage ride in New York,” Conor McHugh, a longtime carriage driver, told the Council earlier this year.
Efforts to close down the industry have been met with pushback from unions and influential supporters, often resulting in tiresome political fights that have seen mayors throw up their hands over nagging worries about putting carriage drivers out of work and what to do with the horses if they can no longer work.
Transport Workers Union International President John Samuelsen said the Council's bill has “no meaningful economic relief for workers” and that Menin “used the tragic death of a tourist to contrive a public safety crisis.”
“This is disgraceful political opportunism, and Zohran should not simply go along with it, particularly when immigrant families’ livelihoods are being destroyed. This entire situation is reprehensible,” he said in a statement.
The proposal as written would require the mayor's office to develop a workforce transition plan for drivers, and includes a measure that would allow the city to consider some kind of compensation for industry workers. Carriage owners could not sell their horses off for slaughter, according to the bill's language, which requires that horses be disposed of in a “humane manner.”
“I think we have a civic responsibility to ensure that we are not leaving anybody out to dry,” Mamdani told reporters Wednesday.
The mayor's predecessor, Eric Adams, called for ending the industry during the waning days of his administration, but the proposal went nowhere. The mayor before that, Bill de Blasio, had pledged to eliminate the rides on day one of his administration but abandoned the crusade after heavy opposition from unions and a media blitz involving actor Liam Neeson.
Over the years, the city has placed various safety regulations around the industry, including a requirement that the horses get at least five weeks of vacation a year outside of city limits with daily access to a pasture. The horses are inspected by a veterinarian twice a year, and the maximum age they can work at is 26, according to city regulations. And they don't work when it is hotter than 89 degrees.
A horse-drawn carriage takes passengers for a loop through Central Park as joggers run, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Horse-drawn carriages offer trips through through Central Park, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
An ice cream vendor peers from his food truck where horse drawn carriages wait for passengers at the entrance to Central Park, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A horse-drawn carriage takes passengers for a loop through Central Park, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A carriage horse that takes people on rides through Central Park drinks water at an entrance to the park, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
FILE - Horse dawn carriages gather at an entrance to Central Park in New York on Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
FILE - A carriage horse is covered with a blanket, waiting for customers on Central Park South in New York on Jan. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
FILE - A horse dawn carriage takes passengers for a loop through Central Park in New York on Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
FILE - A horse and carriage are seen in the snow in Central Park on Jan. 16, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter K. Afriyie, File)
