This year’s Right to College Youth Leader Training Kickoff was co-hosted by CARA and the NYC Office of Student Pathways and featured a powerful keynote from Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso (see video clip on Instagram).

The event was held at NYU and welcomed over 120 rising high school juniors and seniors who are spending four weeks training as Youth Leaders. CARA’s Youth Leaders serve as near-peer postsecondary access mentors; most of them work in Student Success Centers (SSCs) at their schools, a model launched in Brooklyn over a decade ago through the efforts of youth organizers at The Urban Youth Collaborative. Today, SSCs are a citywide model helping thousands of students navigate life after high school.

In his keynote, BP Reynoso shared how he almost didn’t go to college until his best friend filled out applications for him (he did note that he wrote his own college essay, of course!). “You are that representation of my best friend,” he told the Youth Leaders. “For a lot of these young people, they just need a little bit of help and someone that cares, and you’re going to be able to do that.”

He closed with a charge to not only help peers access resources, but to do it with love: “We have a lot of smart people. What we don’t have is people who are kind. When you give love, you get love.”

We are grateful to leaders like BP Reynoso who reflect the lived experiences of our students and who affirm the power of peer leadership to build a more equitable future for all students.

A special thank you to NYU’s Division of Applied Undergraduate Studies within the School of Professional Studies for co-sponsoring the event and providing the Youth Leaders with the chance to tour the campus and see all that NYU has to offer. And to NYCPS and the Office of Student Pathways for your continued collaboration in developing SSCs ross NYC. We were especially proud to welcome Jane Martínez Dowling, the new Chief of the Office of Student Pathways, to her first Youth Leader event and excited to celebrate, together, the inclusion of funding for SSCs in NYC’s budget this year.