Stories
Voices of opportunity
Powerful, first-hand stories and personal reflections from the front lines of the Opportunity Movement.
Featured stories
Everybody has a story to tell.
Here are just a few of our current favorites.
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Rhode Island
Alumni
A Community That Has Your Back: Marisa Desjarlais
How unconditional support from Year Up is helping Marisa persevere during unprecedented times
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Greater Philadelphia
Alumni
Embracing the Non-Traditional Path: Bene’t Morando
From her experience in Year Up, Bene’t Morando learned that humility is the key to confidence and to seize every learning opportunity she’s presented with.
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Bay Area
Alumni
How Julie Dominguez is Transforming Her Community
Julie Dominguez, a 2015 Year Up graduate, uses the skills she learned in the program to advocate for fellow Native Americans.
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New York
Alumni
Seizing Opportunities to Grow: Candacy Jeffery
Candace is a Data Coordinator at The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) & Year Up New York Graduate, Class of July 2017.
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Black Lives Matter.
Systemic and institutional racism plays a key role in determining which young adults get opportunities to experience economic mobility, and which young adults face countless obstacles to reaching their full potential. At Year Up, we have worked for 20 years to remove these obstacles knowing the systems were flawed, and we will always have more work to do.
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