SPRING 2024
A Message from COO Dr. John Tupponce
As summer approaches and City Year’s new crop of AmeriCorps members prepares to devote themselves to a year of service, I’m proud of the strides we’ve made to support students, increase graduation rates and erase some of the setbacks caused by the pandemic.
As you can imagine, it hasn’t been easy for public schools, but we see in the data that our efforts are making a difference. While creating a stable and consistent environment where learning in all its forms can thrive, City Year pays attention to the whole student.
Come fall, our student success coaches will build consistent, caring and positive relationships with students during school and in after-school programs. These near-peer tutors and mentors do everything they can to increase academic success while helping students feel a sense of belonging.
City Year partners with teachers to ensure students are engaged with their learning, which is critical to workforce and interpersonal skill development — and, with community support, helps them reach their full potential. Those are outcomes you can feel proud of as a City Year supporter.
Every contribution makes a difference.
The City Year Origin Story
In 1988, Michael Brown and Alan Khazei were roommates at Harvard Law School. That’s where they hatched the idea for City Year: Enlist young adults to serve their community while developing key leadership skills, including the ability to work with people from diverse backgrounds for the common good. The concept helped to inspire AmeriCorps, the national service program that has delivered 1.2 billion hours of public service since its creation in 1992.
The partnership between AmeriCorps and City Year has been fruitful, with 40,000 City Year alums who continue to make a difference where they live and work.
Each year, with the help of supporters like you, City Year recruits and trains young adults to become student success coaches in hundreds of systemically under-resourced public schools across 29 U.S. cities.
Statistics Aren’t Always Dull
A 2021 City Year student survey found that 84% of students felt that their City Year AmeriCorps member taught them how to self-advocate and ask for help. Those are critical skills for life and workforce success.
In a 2022 survey of City Year alums, 48% reported they currently work in the education sector as teachers, principals, guidance counselors, in education policy or at education nonprofits.
95% of principals surveyed responded that City Year has been adaptable and flexible in responding to their schools’ needs. The same percentage of partner principals and partner teachers said City Year was key to the engagement and participation of students in school during the pandemic.
One last stat: City Year partners with 300+ public schools in 29 cities across the United States. Your contribution ensures that students are supported academically and socially as they build relationships with peers and adults.
City Year’s Whole School, Whole Child® Approach
While having near-peer mentors in city schools to act as student success coaches seems like an obvious idea, there is so much more to City Year.
Let’s start with students. More than 10 million students across America have had a City Year AmeriCorps member in their lives during the school year, which leads to better graduation rates. Students also need support and encouragement that they can’t often find in a world where social media reigns.
Today, 40,000 City Year alumni are out in the world acting in leadership positions and providing immense value to corporations, businesses and nonprofit organizations.
Our Whole School, Whole Child approach, backed by research and in-school practice, is baked into City Year’s overall mission to effect positively systemic change.
When you support City Year, you also help us share what we have learned with educators and policymakers who make crucial local and national decisions that impact student success rates.
Donor or Investor?
Some think of themselves as City Year donors, and others see themselves as investors. Both make sense to us.
As a donor, you devote a portion of your hard-earned money toward City Year’s holistic approach to helping students reach their full potential. Through our partnership with AmeriCorps, we train and develop new leaders who will go out into the world and effect positive change. Both happen through City Year’s presence in local schools and classrooms.
As an investor, you support City Year’s big-picture mission to help communities excel by ensuring students and young people have the tools, environments, relationships and skills they need to succeed in whatever paths they choose. Corporations and the trades benefit from a strong, better-prepared workforce.
Either way, gift or investment, big or small, we are grateful for you.
In whatever way you envision your involvement in the City Year story, being a financial supporter is a surefire way to increase student achievement, make a year of national service a common rite of passage, and create a vibrant, productive community that reflects the many ways we value our young people.
Member Spotlight: Ju White
Awards? Accolades? Special recognition? While those things are nice, the thing that AmeriCorps member Ju White finds truly satisfying about his work with City Year New Orleans is the impact of the work he is doing for his students. The meaningful relationships he’s forged and the one-on-one support he provides are part of the rewarding work he is carrying out as a tutor and mentor.
Ju shared his talents with young people by starting an apparel design club to teach sewing and how to create clothing from scratch. That led to some in-house repair work by students for band uniforms! Beyond academics, City Year encourages the development of the whole self, which Ju White takes seriously in his work with students in his community of New Orleans East.
Actress Octavia Spencer is United With the Mission of City Year
The world knows Octavia Spencer as an award-winning actress and author, awarded an Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, Critic’s Choice and Screen Actors Guild award for her role in The Help.
The Alabama-born Spencer is lesser known for her philanthropy and charity work, which include helping to feed healthcare workers and provide breathing monitors during the height of the pandemic, promoting the Alliance for Women in Media and supporting City Year.
We are grateful to count Octavia Spencer as a believer in the vital mission of City Year as we change the world one young person at a time.
Behind the scenes with CY Philadelphia’s Civic Engagement team
At City Year, we want to ensure that our impact goes well beyond the tutoring and mentorship AmeriCorps members perform in local schools. So we created the Civic Engagement team, which engages corporations and their employees in high-impact volunteer events.
The events are designed to enable student, corporate and community volunteers to take part in a dynamic day of service. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Civic Engagement team includes AmeriCorps members who return for a second year of service as Project Leaders.
This is yet another example of how City Year supporters have an impact not only in local partner schools but throughout entire communities where City Year has established sites.
City Year, Inc. is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization (Tax ID Number: 22-2882549) and your donation is tax deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law. To claim a donation as a deduction on your U.S. taxes, we will follow up with a tax receipt shortly which will show your tax-deductible portion according to IRS guidelines.
How can I make a gift of stock/securities? If you would like to make a gift of securities, please contact Andrew Kent at [email protected] or (617) 927-2324.
Can I pay through my donor-advised fund? Yes, we ask that you have your donor-advised fund gift sent to: Bank of America Lockbox Services City Year Inc. 412755, MA527-08-07, 2 Morrissey Blvd., Dorchester, MA 02125
Would you like to donate immediately? Click here to be directed to our donation page.
