“A non profit organization in Oakland is giving away a record number of college scholarships to high school students and they are recruiting mentors to help them do it.”

East Bay College Fund Alumnus, Jameil Butler and Executive Director, Diane Dodge speak about our scholarships and mentoring program on KGO/Good News in Oakland.  Click here to listen to the podcast.

Instructor Anthony Williams, center, leads students through a yoga class during the East Bay College Fund’s Winter Retreat on Jan. 3, 2013, at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for The Arts in Oakland. (Aric Crabb/Staff)

Come May 22, 40 college-bound students will attend an awards ceremony in Oakland to receive a four-year, $16,000 scholarship from the East Bay College Fund. During the ceremony, scholars will share their goals and some of their histories, most likely including overcoming adversity and being the first of their families to attend college.

Recognizing the need for more than just financial aid, East Bay College Fund pairs each scholarship recipient with a mentor, there for the entire college experience, ready with support and guidance, to lend a been-there-done-that ear and to forge a personal relationship. To ensure the success of 2013′s 40 new scholarships, East Bay College Fund is turning to the community to become part of this amazing group of scholars and the people who support them.

The organization was begun in 2003, founded by Andy Fremder, and a small group that included his wife, Barb, and sister, Julie. Their goal was to target students attending an Oakland public school with a 3.0 to 3.7 grade-point average, who had overcome adversity and knew how to persevere. That year they awarded seven Great Expectations scholarships. Nine years and 187 scholarships later, the accomplishments remain the same.

“Number one is that a college degree for a low-income student is a game changer and is the number-one way to end generational poverty,” said Diane Dodge, executive director of the East Bay College Fund. “The second is all the
experiences students will have that will expand their perspective and what it will do for them personally, and the third is giving back to the community for other students to see what they’ve done.”

Student support begins in high school with college-access programs and full-time staff at Castlemont and Oakland high schools who get students on the college track and talk to them about financial planning and college life. During junior and senior year, volunteers help them with college, financial aid and scholarship applications. At five Oakland high schools, East Bay College Fund comes in one day a week to teach young men in the manhood development class about college, as part of the African American Male Achievement Initiative.

“We have school-based services because we want to have equity for all,” Dodge said. “We’re trying to change the culture of the school.”

The programs are paying off; last year, the fund received 350 completed applications for 35 scholarships. This year, they hope to award 40, and to this end the community can help with donations, by serving as volunteers or by committing as a mentor.

Piedmont residents Maude Pervere and husband Sam Miller are each mentoring and describe their experiences as rewarding, providing an opportunity to make a difference in a young person’s life while being exposed to a community of scholars and mentors that are inspiring. “This is a relationship with a young person who is in a position to educate us about the struggle to take advantage of education, and I have found that the students teach us more than we ever teach them,” Pervere said. Miller feels the time commitment is not a problem and even welcomes times when things do not go well. “To see these young people overcome difficulties — and you are there to help them succeed — is part of the reward,” he said.

Dodge added that a big factor for students, a buoyancy in tough times, is that their mentors, people of quality, believe in them and are willing to be there for them.

With an 83 percent graduation rate, compared to 30 percent nationally for the same demographic, there’s no question that East Bay College Fund’s mentor-supported scholarships are helping students complete college. More than that, these scholars are coming back to the community, serving as models for younger students and helping to affect change.

“You feel that here’s a whole community who look at things in a different way and really can make a difference,” Miller said. “This is an inspiring organization to be affiliated with.”

• Funds to support College Access Programs and African American Male Achievement Initiative
  

“This was a very competitive grant environment and we are very honored to have been awarded $165,000 to support our innovative work that helps pave a path to college for under-represented Oakland public high school students,” explains East Bay College Fund Executive Director Diane Dodge.
The Morrison & Foerster Foundation, one of the oldest law firm charitable foundations, awarded $1.5 million to youth charities across the United States designed to support programs serving disadvantaged young people in cities where the firm has offices.  In its press release, the Foundation highlights East Bay College Funds award:

“$165,000 to East Bay College Fund in Oakland, CA to develop its College Access Program to serve students at three large Oakland high schools, and to provide a district-wide academic success and college guidance program for African-American young men.”

Listen to Jameil’s “Perspective” on KQED

March 19, 2010

Nonprofits Add Mentoring to Money to Keep Minorities in College

By TRACEY TAYLOR

As college admissions season draws to a close, the spotlight has been on students’ getting a foot in the door. Less attention is paid to how many of today’s high school seniors will emerge a few years down the line with diplomas in hand, and what might cause them to veer off track.

It is much tougher to stay the course in college if you are the first in your family to enroll in college, if you have rarely strayed far from home and if your life is still affected by family problems, be it a jobless parent or an addicted sibling.

At a national level, one student in two enrolling in college earns a degree within six years. In the Bay Area’s most challenged communities, the ratio is far worse. The problem is most acute among young black and Latino men. According to data gathered by the Oakland Unified School District, only 8 percent of black teenagers entering ninth grade will get a bachelor’s degree. Only 34 percent of black male students, and 44 percent of Latino male students who entered the combined University of California and California State University system in 2001 had graduated six years later. The rate for white men was 62 percent.

That statistic, graduation rates, is in the cross hairs of the East Bay College Fund. It is perhaps the most visible of a small but growing number of Bay Area nonprofits that are beginning to make inroads in steering young, at-risk students to college, and also helping them through it. The fund’s method is to supplement financial aid with a carefully administered program of mentoring, peer-to-peer guidance and life-skills training.

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