-: I am fiercely loyal,
focused, and passionate about ensuring that all students,
regardless of zip code or race,
have the opportunity to attend college
or pursue a career of their choice.
So I'm donating my $10,000 prize to my former employer
and nonprofit, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools,
which is LA's largest charter management organization,
serving 13,000 students in the LA area.
Of those students, 97% of them are Black or Hispanic.
93% come from low income families.
And 90% will be first-generation college goers.
Alliance College-Ready exists to achieve educational equity
by pushing boundaries of what is possible,
and has an unwavering belief that each and every student
should have the opportunity to go to a college
that matches their career ambitions.
I am really proud of the work that I did
at Alliance College-Ready in developing strategies
and systems and progress monitoring tools
to support college completion aspirations
of all of our students.
And not just getting them into college,
but ensuring that they actually persist in college as well.
My time at BCG was invaluable to where I am today.
And mostly because I had expressed an interest
in doing social impact work at BCG,
and they were able to make that happen.
So of my time there,
I was able to spend time both locally and abroad
working on complex social issues with a wide variety
of people and bringing together many, many organizations
to try to address those, particularly in education.
So without that,
I would never have had the credibility
that I do have in my work today.
Those, particularly BCG current staff and alumni,
I believe we just have an incredible power
to change the conversation and to put in place systems
and structures that will change how people think about DEI
and how it impacts different communities.
I think on a micro level,
each of us can take a look internally
of what's in our locus of control,
take a fresh look at historical systems
and the history that we learned,
and think about how has that
really impacted different communities
that we might be working with today.
And how do we help kind of overcome some of those barriers
that were put up in the past, even if they no longer exist.
I think all of us can take a look
of where we invest our money, either personally
or on behalf of our organizations,
and make sure that we're supporting those who may not always
have access to monetary capital or social capital.
The path to ensuring educational equity
is long and complex and hard.
It can not come alone and it requires focus and dedication
from a broad range of individuals who want to stick with it
for the long run, and have an unwavering passion
to the mission.