Education was always heavily promoted in my household. My mom always prioritized cultivating my cognitive ability. I could read fluently by the time I was 3 and any lesson covered in school I covered with her a year or two prior. Growing up in the Bronx with three brothers and three sisters, we certainly didn’t have a lot. Therefore, she always told me that I was starting well below the starting point and in order for me to just compete I had to be better than everyone. I got scholarships and went to private high school and got a full ride to college. I have always understood through experiences, observations and study that opportunity in this country is not equally distributed. I always understood that I was not one of the people it was given to because of the color of my skin. However, because of my mother, I also understood that education is agency and that it is attainable to anyone if they know it’s there. Therefore, since college I’ve always wanted to contribute to the educational experience of kids like me. I started at a charter school in the Bronx, then came to Public Allies new York to further facilitate that trajectory. My experience at Unity Fellowship Breaking Ground has been eye opening. Spear-heading the College Readiness and Access program and partnering with the Department of Education has heightened my awareness of who has access to college in NYC. I’ve had the opportunity to cultivate relationships, both with administrators and with a youth age-group to which I haven’t had much exposure before. I’ve developed my ability to take the lead on projects and plan events, such as initiating and developing prosperous partnerships, setting up and executing college trips, and driving the program forward in ways that it didn’t exist before.