Social Impact

November 30, 2023 In Service, Social Impact, Uncategorized

Classroom Inequality: Bridging the Gap at Breakthrough

Pursuing a Fellowship at Breakthrough Greater Boston was a natural next step after college, given my passion for alleviating classroom inequality. Majoring in sociology ignited my passion and revealed a sense of connection to the field as I pursued an undergraduate degree. My studies uncovered many social patterns that contributed to personal challenges I originally thought affected me by chance. As a Black, second-generation immigrant from a working-class, single-parent household, I recognized my own experiences with sociological concepts. The connection between child-rearing styles, socio-economic status, and classroom inequality was a particularly interesting topic that provided an explanation for the challenges I faced as an underrepresented minority attending a predominantly white institution.

As I assist in middle school programming, interacting with students who attend the same middle and high school I graduated from... it often feels surreal to contribute to the outcomes of students that I see myself within.

Literature on classroom inequality suggests there is a causal link between a family’s socioeconomic status, their understanding of classroom expectations, and the way they teach their children to navigate their academics. This can critically affect the course of a student’s education journey, especially when compared to their wealthier peers. To counteract these roots of classroom inequality, programming at Breakthrough involves an intensive academic curriculum from middle to high school, tiered social-emotional development, and exposure to college—with hopes of assisting students in building a college-going identity and skills for college success. Students experience these layers to Breakthrough via afterschool programming in the fall and spring, all before our rigorous summer program. The full day of classes and research-based programs that Breakthrough students complete throughout the six weeks directly combats the achievement gaps that widen during summer vacation.

Breakthrough’s early academic intervention works to dismantle and replace harmful academic messaging that students may have received, all while celebrating student identities in a close-knit community that values academic and social-emotional health. Breakthrough cultivates a setting in which students foster a personal love of learning and hone their sights on getting to college, where they can feel confident to succeed. Breakthrough’s college success focus encourages academic skills and social behaviors that promote persistence and college graduation. From entering the program in seventh grade to their transition to college, Breakthrough students demonstrate executive functioning, critical thinking, and self-advocacy: skills that working-class students must exhibit to level the unequal grounds of the college classroom.

With an in-depth understanding of the perpetuation of classroom inequality, Breakthrough’s mission of inspiring enthusiasm for learning as well as creating paths to and through college stood out to me when I was selecting which Fellowship host to apply to. It was important to me that my future host organization was committed to intervening in the academic trajectories of working-class students, allowing them the privileges of their middle-class counterparts through their long-term, life-changing programming. As I assist in middle school programming, interacting with students who attend the same middle and high school I graduated from in my own small community within Boston, it often feels surreal to contribute to the outcomes of students that I see myself within. When I reflect on the role of Breakthrough in my community, I am certain that if I had participated in the program I would have been more prepared to face the stratified challenges of my predominantly white institution.

Witnessing Breakthrough’s impact firsthand fuels my dedication to shaping positive student outcomes and addressing classroom inequality for future generations. My journey with Breakthrough Greater Boston is not just a Fellowship; it is a commitment to making a lasting impact on the lives of students and fostering a more equitable educational landscape.

Jahmali Matthews

Jahmali (she/her) is the Marketing & Communications FAO Schwarz Fellow Breakthrough Greater Boston.

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July 11, 2023 In Social Impact, Spotlight

How the Unique Benefits of the Fellowship Enhance Opportunities for both Fellows and Nonprofit Host Partners

The Fellowships are designed not only to support the development of young social impact leaders, but also to increase the capacity of their nonprofit host organizations.

Last year, Fellows really did "lead the change" by working to pass legislation, helping to create and expand key programs to better serve their communities, and growing host's partnership networks.

Here are just a few examples of their recent accomplishments:

Ryan Telingator, FAO Schwarz Fellow ’23 at Jumpstart in Boston, collaborated with partners and advocated for legislation in Massachusetts that would increase educator compensation, provide direct-to-provider funding to stabilize programs, and increase the state’s financial assistance to families to help make programs more affordable. (see blog postwritten by Ryan). Recently, in collaboration with his supervisor, he successfully lobbied for Jumpstart to receive a “historic” $350,000 in the Massachusetts state budget, enabling them to expand their programming and impact throughout the state.

His supervisor shared: “Even after a leadership transition at Jumpstart, Ryan continued to lead this effort, securing additional support for the budget amendment with an increased ask of $450,000. Ryan’s leadership within the Common Start Coalition, advocating for accessible and affordable early care and education (ECE), has also been instrumental. Despite initial setbacks in passing the Common Start bill, Ryan and the coalition remained committed to reintroducing it in this session, and their efforts have led to two bills aligned with the Common Start vision in the House and Senate. Ryan’s dedication to lobbying legislators and raising awareness about ECE has been impeccable. He currently holds a significant leadership position on the coalition’s steering committee.”

Ryan has spoken at the State House for a briefing, provided policy resources to journalists and coalition members, met with Governor Healey’s staff, and contributed to a historical budget increase for ECE.

Nia Atkins, FAO Schwarz Fellow ‘23 at Year Up in New York City, led the Year Up NY/NJ site’s Learning Community “Look Back, Look Ahead” meetings since August 2022. Her supervisor shared, “These meetings are key moments for the Year Up NY/NJ staff community to gather and reflect on the journey of our participants after a class has graduated from the program. Nia has done an excellent job of sifting through the key performance data of our cohorts such as retention, attrition rates, and job conversion data. The Look Back/Look Ahead report and meeting also supplies qualitative data about our participant’s experience throughout both their Learning and Development and Internship phases which gives staff a valuable snapshot of how our young people performed and felt while going through this journey with us.”

To execute these meetings and ensure valuable data was captured and analyzed, Nia collaborated closely with both the Program and Internship teams, and improved and streamlined the data visualization aspect to make the information more accessible. Additionally, Nia served as a coach to young adults in the program, mentoring participants through the program, and supporting them with interview preparation, resume improvement, public speaking, and presentation skills (see blog post written by Nia).

"The Fellowship exerience can be a truly transformative—not just for our Fellows, but also for our host partners"

Priscilla Cohen, FAO Fellowship Program Executive Director

Kira Azulay, FAO Schwarz Fellow ’23 at the Museum of Science in Boston, led two youth events as part of a new High School Science Series program focused on the themes of mental health and climate justice. Kira was responsible for securing and hosting guest speakers, creating an educator guide for teachers, and coordinating logistics for on-site set-up and evaluation. At each event, there were about 200 high school students in attendance who were able to ask questions of the panelists and then participate in hands-on projects at the Museum. Kira reflected on her experience as an FAO Schwarz Fellow in this video.

Kira has increased the Museum’s capacity to invest in youth development and intentionally think about their practices when engaging with young people. Her supervisor shared, “In Year 1 of her Fellowship, Kira researched and cataloged youth organizations in Massachusetts and other states to help us better understand how various organizations support youth through education and employment opportunities. She also curated a literature review related to working with youth which we hope to use as a resource for potentially forming a youth council in the future. In Year 2 of her Fellowship, Kira had the chance to develop and lead content and events for youth as part of our High School Series Program. Both events afforded Kira the opportunity to put youth engagement strategies to practice as she sought to find topics, speakers, and activities that would both interest and resonate with youth.”

Vanessa Barragán, FAO Schwarz Fellow ’24 at The Food Project in Boston, focuses in part on community engagement through their Build-A-Garden program, where they support Boston residents in growing their own food through the installation of raised garden beds (see blog post written by Vanessa). Her supervisor shared that Vanessa is “doing an incredible job managing the Build-a-Garden program. Building on her work, The Food Project plans to double its impact, moving from 50 installations per year to 100 installations per year. ”

Sophie Becker-Klein, FAO Schwarz Fellow ’24 at Audubon Mid-Atlantic in Philadelphia, has grown partnerships with schools in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood where she is providing weekly lessons on environmental education (see blog post written by Sophie). Sophie’s supervisor wrote: “Sophie and I, through a series of meetings, developed a school-year schedule for her teaching Audubon lessons in class at our priority schools. These lessons included birds and bird migration, Healthy Watersheds and healthy Delaware River, bird adaptations, and Weather vs. Climate were specifically chosen by Sophie to encompass the full range and impact of Audubon. Sophie will be interacting with all grades in these schools. This is the first time Audubon Mid-Atlantic has had the resources to fully commit to multiple schools and this work could not be done without Sophie.”

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Sophie and a colleague share information about Audubon Mid-Atlantic at a table.

April 12, 2023 In Service, Social Impact

The Importance of Deep Community Engagement

A normal day at work for me usually involves at least one bird, between one and three classrooms, and what feels like infinite students greeting me as I walk down the hallways with hugs and shouts of “Hey, Ms. Sophie,” or “Look, there’s the bird lady!” In my nine months in Philadelphia with Audubon Mid-Atlantic, I have learned that everything we do is community-driven. In my role, I engage with three schools on a weekly basis, providing four lessons per grade over the course of the school year. As I have spent week after week at these schools, I have continued to see the importance of not only being engaged with the community, but having deep roots, particularly in the local schools.

Although it is widely accepted that nature centers that are perceived as part of the community have a broader base of support, many nature centers have operated for dozens of years without deeply listening to the community.

It may seem repetitive to teach four lessons to every grade at the same school, but this continuity is what creates deep community engagement. As my supervisor, Damien Ruffner told me, “It can feel like you’re completing the same steps over and over, but you have to make yourself a consistent presence in the community.”

Environmental education researchers have found that community members are more likely to be involved in their local nature centers when their local centers are actively involved in the community. In other words, by becoming integrated into the learning of local students, my role is to not only teach them about environmental issues, but also help them feel comfortable enough to come visit the Discovery Center, where Audubon-Mid Atlantic is housed, on their own time with their families.

Although it is widely accepted that nature centers that are perceived as part of the community have a broader base of support, many nature centers have operated for dozens of years without deeply listening to the community, much less incorporating community feedback into their programming. In recent years, many centers have realized that they need to incorporate community members into their boards, leadership, and employees, and they are now making up for lost time. While a nature center may come in with the best intentions, going by what they think the community needs instead of what the community thinks they need, hurts centers’ community engagement.

The Discovery Center sits right next to the Strawberry Mansion Reservoir, which is now a lake that is preserved for animals and the people who want to take in this beautiful natural space. However, the reservoir (once a source of drinking water for the surrounding areas) was closed to the public in 1970. It was only re-opened to the public when the Discovery Center was founded in 2018. From the beginning, the Discovery Center operated with a community engagement committee, which continues to serve as an advisory committee that makes many of the programming, budgeting, and hiring decisions.

Every day, I go out on our .75 mile, out-and-back trail, run into at least one person from the local community, and get to chat with them. Often, they will tell me how they remember when this land was a reservoir and it was not open to residents. Now, they have the opportunity to access this natural space that was once closed off. The organizations housed at the Discovery Center feel that providing access to the community will allow community members to feel healed by and connected to nature. And maybe that is what deep community engagement is really about, helping the community feel ownership of and comfort in the spaces that should have been open to them from the beginning.

Browning et al. Factors that contribute to community members’ support of local nature centers (2018). Environmental Education Research.

“The Discovery Center” https://www.discoveryphila.org/

Sophie Becker-Klein

Sophie Becker-Klein (she/her) is FAO Schwarz Fellow at Audubon Mid-Atlantic's Discovery Center in Philadelphia.

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FAO Schwarz Fellow Ryan speaks from a podium at the Massachusetts State House

April 3, 2023 In Career, Service, Social Impact

A Vision for Early Care and Education

Early care and education (ECE) is a fascinating field to work in. It is so multifaceted, with a plethora of stakeholder groups including children, families and caregivers, educators, program directors, and employers. I have been able to interact with many of the stakeholders throughout my Fellowship, and learn at least one new thing every day – about brain development, teaching credentials, the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care’s financial assistance program, and more – and anticipate that that will be the case for my entire time working in ECE. The field is so important, and I feel grateful to be a part of the early education community!

I have the absolute privilege of working every day in service of Jumpstart’s vision that one day every child in America will enter kindergarten prepared to succeed.

The children involved – aged 0 to 5 – are in the most developmentally significant phases of their lives. Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child explains that “early experiences affect the quality of [brain architecture] by establishing either a sturdy or fragile foundation for all of the learning, health and behavior that follow,” with more than one million neural connections forming every second. Research finds that participating in an early care and education program as a child has positive effects throughout an individual’s life: participants are less likely to be placed in special education, have increased college graduation and employment rates, and have long-term health benefits.

It is evident that early care and education is vital to child development and life outcomes. It thus should not be controversial to suggest that all children, no matter income or zip code, should have the opportunity to access ECE. All children can access – and are legally compelled to attend – publicly funded schools (i.e. public schools) from ages five to 16, give or take a few years depending on the state. Unsurprisingly and unfortunately, that is not the case in the early years. Instead, the ECE system is – as described in a Bank Street Education Center report – a “haphazard patchwork of [publicly subsidized] resources [that] leaves the rest to find care in a severely broken private-pay marketplace that few families can afford.”

A recent brief from the United States Department of Labor highlights the lack of affordability of early care and education. “In 2018, median childcare prices for one child ranged from $4,810 ($5,357 in 2022 dollars) to $15,417 ($17,171 in 2022 dollars) depending on provider type, children’s age, and county population size.” With such exorbitant costs, family contributions range from between 8% and 19.3% of the median family income; an already burdensome cost that only increases with each child. A Boston Globe analysis of the Department of Labor’s data found that all 14 counties in Massachusetts rank in the top 100 nationally for the cost of infant care, with Middlesex and Norfolk counties costing more than $26,000 annually—costs that rank in the top three nationally.

Such high expenses sometimes force parents to leave the workforce to minimize the cost of child care, a decision that often falls onto working mothers. High quality early care and education is now recognized as “a critical piece of the workforce infrastructure,” and as “fundamental to the success of… local econom[ies].” The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation estimates that “lack of access to child care in Massachusetts is resulting in at least $2.7 billion each year in lost earnings for individuals, lower productivity and additional costs for employers, and lost tax revenue for the Commonwealth.”

And then there’s the heart of ECE: the educators, program directors, and other folks associated with keeping the programs running. These folks spend their entire days educating (facilitating literacy, linguistic, and social-emotional development), navigating interpersonal conflicts over the destruction of block towers, and nurturing the kiddos so parents and caregivers can work. It is important to clarify that the high cost of care for families does not translate to high wages for educators. To the contrary—Directors know that the cost is already unsustainable, so they are loath to increase them any more to facilitate corresponding wage increases. As a result, early educators receive poverty wages. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at the University of California Berkeley, child care workers made $11.65 per hour in 2019; a wage that ranks in the 2^nd percentile of all jobs. They could earn more working at a Dunkin! Early educators – who are predominantly women of color – are overworked, undervalued, and underpaid.

The CSCCE data shows that educators could leave the field and go teach kindergarten at a public school and earn $30,000 more per year. The same goes for teaching pre-kindergarten at a public school. That’s not right.

The United States spends significantly less per child on early care and education compared to other countries. Seen as a private market instead of a public good, the burden is on parents and caregivers to pay exorbitant amounts to get their kids into care. The system is broken. The system is in crisis. Children, families, educators, programs, and the economy are all affected because of the country’s lack of investment in the industry. This is an economic equity, gender equity, racial equity, and educational equity issue. It is easy not to see the forest through the trees amidst the compounding equity issues. However, at the core of it all, one fact remains: all children deserve an accessible and affordable early care and education experience, and educators should be compensated commensurate with public school educators with similar credentials and experience.

In my capacity as a FAO Schwarz Fellow at Jumpstart, I have been welcomed into early education centers where I met wonderful directors, educators, and kiddos. I have also met with legislators in the Massachusetts State House and advocated for bills that would increase educator compensation, provide direct-to-provider funding to stabilize programs, and increase the state’s financial assistance to families to help make programs more affordable.

I have the absolute privilege of working every day in service of Jumpstart’s vision that one day every child in America will enter kindergarten prepared to succeed. It’s the best job in the world.

Ryan Telingator

Ryan (he/him) is the FAO Schwarz Fellow at Jumpstart in Boston.

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March 27, 2023 In Alumni, Beyond the Fellowship, Career, Social Impact

Fellowship Alums Share Social Impact Resources

We asked current and alum Fellows to share their perspectives on their careers, social challenges, and resources that have influenced them in their careers, and more broadly, the world of social impact. This is the final part of a four-part series.

What is the most interesting book you’ve read or podcast you’ve listened to on social impact?

Julia MacMahon ‘10:

I just finished listening to season 5 of Scene on Radio: “The Repair”, which explores the roots of the climate crisis and what went wrong with our (the West’s) relationship with the natural world. It’s really thought-provoking and has helped me to place a lot of my feelings of ambivalence about the modern world and how many of our systems function.

Jesse McLaughlin ‘24:

Staying with the Trouble by Donna Haraway is a potent reminder of the interconnectedness of all creatures (human and non-human) in the messy struggle for justice and equity on a damaged planet.

Kayla Hopgood ‘14:

An important read for me was Words for a Dying World: Stories of Grief and Courage from the Global Church. The author, Hannah Malcolm, basically makes the argument that in order to make any sort of meaningful impact on the climate crisis we need to learn how to grieve. Proper grief should propel us to act. When we consider social impact we do need to consider the philosophical, religious, and psychological underpinnings many of our greatest injustices carry. That’s part of the work I do as a minister.

Ciara Williams ‘18:

I really enjoyed the book Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power across Neoliberal America by Brett Story. I also enjoy The Red Nation podcast hosted by Nick Estes and Jen Marley.

Quick Recommendations

Fellows shared so many great recommendations, we had to include more!

We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba – Recommended by Jen Benson ‘17, Lauren Hurley ‘20

“My most recent favorite podcasts is a two-parter from Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead podcast about Immunity to Change with Lisa Lahey. It’s not necessarily specific to social impact, but it just a fantastic walkthrough of how to set realistic and impactful goals and then actually accomplish them.” – Recommended by Dawn Lavalle ‘16

“Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer—beautiful and eye-opening book!” – Recommended by Charlotte Blackman ‘22

Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown (as well as the podcast they co-host with their sister, Autumn Brown, called “How to Survive the End of the World”). – Recommended by Sarah Kacevich

“If you’re interested in starting up a business, I recommend reading The Lapsed Anarchists Guide to Building a Better Business by Ari Weinzweig.” – Recommended by Emily Vikre ‘08

“I listen to a podcast called Code Switch that tackles topics around race, ethnicity, and pop culture.” – Recommended by Nia Atkins ‘23

“I highly recommend listening to Maintenance Phase, which deconstructs the research behind science and health fads, and talks a lot about anti-fat bias.” – Recommended by Mariah Peebles ‘11

March 13, 2023 In Alumni, Beyond the Fellowship, Career, Social Impact

Fellowship Alums Discuss Their Career Paths

We asked current and alum Fellows to share their perspectives on their careers, social challenges, and resources that have influenced them in their careers, and more broadly, the world of social impact. This is the second in a four-part series.

Tell us a little about your career path after the Fellowship. How did the Fellowship experience influence your career path?

Joe Rosales ‘16:

My Fellowship at Breakthrough New York was my first foray into education – I came into my role as High School Coordinator with very little student-facing experience, but I learned a tremendous amount in my two years on staff. While my role had me working with ninth through twelfth graders and on various projects, I surmised early on that my strongest passion came with counseling. I followed that instinct into more singular roles until I landed my current position: a college counselor at a public school in Queens. I love it!

Molly Blake ‘19:

The fellowship truly influenced my passion for education and took me on a route to my current company Panorama. I have loved getting to see the impact of social-emotional learning from a high level and impacting districts across the country. My next move is to hopefully get into expansion work and continuously help districts with behavior issues in school districts. The Fellowship empowered me to take this leap into education and lead with grace. I am very appreciative of that.

Maley Parilla ‘12:

Prior to finding the Fellowship I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do in my career, besides that I wanted to do something in education but did not want to be a teacher. The Fellowship helped me learn of all the different ways this type of career could be possible and introduced me to all aspects of non-profit work. It gave me the space to try fieldwork and administrative work. The fellowship and working at Jumpstart were formative for me–through these opportunities, I figured out that I wanted to be a Social Worker. The Fellowship and working for Jumpstart gave me such great experience prior to entering the Social Work field and gave me a leg up in terms of experience and opportunities that I could pursue both in grad school and following grad school.

Abi Mlo ‘22:

If it weren’t for my fellowship at the Trust for Public Land, I would have never landed myself a job working in a land protection nonprofit with an emphasis on increasing access to the outdoors. While I don’t plan to stay at TPL forever, I feel forever touched by the organization’s mission and I plan to continue this effort no matter where I end up next.

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February 13, 2023 In Alumni, Beyond the Fellowship, Career, Social Impact

Fellowship Alums Share Career Advice

We asked current and alum Fellows to share their perspectives on their careers, social challenges, and resources that have influenced them in their careers, and more broadly, the world of social impact. This is the first in a four-part series.

What advice would you give current or soon-to-be alumni Fellows as they’re beginning their careers?

Emily Hynes ‘21:

Something from my fellowship experience that has helped me begin to discover my career path was the opportunity to do so many different things in my fellow role. That opportunity gave me both the skills to work in many different areas at future jobs, which I’m currently doing in my new role, as well as the insight into different job areas that has helped me narrow down what I want to do in the future in my career.

Jonathan Baez ‘14:

Be a sponge and absorb as much as you can wherever you can. One of the worst things one can do at the start of their career is to think you know it all. Seek a mentor and seek to grow to your full potential.

Karen Wilber ‘18:

I’ve been lucky to have many amazing managers, and having a great manager can significantly influence your job happiness and professional development success, so if you’re interviewing ask good questions about who will be supervising you and how they support those they work with.

Kayla Jones ‘19:

Keep making the next best step. I know there is a lot of pressure for recent college grads to have everything figured out. There isn’t a ‘right’ or a ‘wrong’ choice to make. Instead, trust that your intuition and passion will help guide your decisions. A path gets determined by a number of steps. Make that next step, even if it feels scary. Taking a step even when you’re scared shows how brave you are. Trust yourself, do your best, and you’ll be surprised by how much you can achieve.

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February 6, 2023 In Service, Social Impact

Practicing Reflection on Community Engagement

At The Food Project, work follows the seasons—physically intensive summers of farmwork are followed by autumn’s final harvests, land closing ceremonies, and preparing farms for next year, which in turn leads into winters of logistical planning and final sales of the summer’s produce. So, as the intensity of outdoor work scaled down this year, with the beginnings of winter, our leadership held a week of all-staff meetings to reflect on the necessary changes to be made to our programs.

At the moment, our organization bases our work around three pillars of focus: Food, Youth, and Community. Even as our projects feature much overlap between these pillars, the focus areas allow us to create our goal outcomes, clarify our mission, and determine which programs are within our capacity and strengths as an organization. Thus, in revisiting our organization’s structure and plans this winter, we evaluated our current goals around the pillars extensively.

I feel grateful to be working for an organization that considers the practice of honest reflection and focused revision so significant.

During one of our meetings, leadership led staff through an exercise called the fishbowl, in which five people most involved in each pillar sat in a smaller inner circle whilst the rest of staff sat surrounding them. The inner circle would work on defining each pillar in regards to the work we do. If compelled to share their ideas as well, anyone from the outer circle could switch places with someone from the inner circle and take their turn to speak. Although a relatively small role, I felt very excited about being selected as one of the initial five to discuss the Community pillar.

Through my recent work managing the Build-A-Garden program—where we install raised garden beds for Boston residents and support them through growing their own food—I have become especially involved in our community engagement. Regularly interacting with residents via installations, workshops, seedling sales, etc., I observe ways in which our organization can improve our collaboration with the community, even as I am a relatively recent introduction to the organization. Thus, having the opportunity to share my perspectives on our community engagement not only empowered me to have a voice amongst our staff, but also gave me the opportunity to reflect on the genuine connections with the community I’ve made, and to recognize ways to positively influence my host organization’s future community collaborations.

Further, I see how our contributions to this discussion have since been integrated into organization-wide changes. In defining what community is at The Food Project, we generally found difficulty in determining a single, all-encompassing answer. While our organization creates its own immediate community, especially amongst the youth in our programs, we also engage with the broader community—sometimes in fleeting but meaningful one-time interactions, and sometimes with community members who work with us throughout their life. Recognizing this, through the reflections from our fishbowl and all-staff meetings, The Food Project has begun assessing the different kinds of community interactions we are involved in. The organization has also begun restructuring our programs, hoping to best leverage those community interactions to spark meaningful change.

I feel grateful to be working for an organization that considers the practice of honest reflection and focused revision so significant. While working in the nonprofit sector, I find it essential to regularly reflect on how our work must change alongside our changing communities. With springtime on the horizon, I look forward to further engaging our organization’s reflections and implementing them to support a flourishing community around gardening and food.

Vanessa Barragán

Vanessa (she/her) is the Build-a-Garden Manager and FAO Schwarz Fellow at The Food Project in Boston.

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Social Impact

Jahmali Matthews

Sophie Becker-Klein

Ryan Telingator

We asked current and alum Fellows to share their perspectives on their careers, social challenges, and resources that have influenced them in their careers, and more broadly, the world of social impact. This is the final part of a four-part series.

What is the most interesting book you’ve read or podcast you’ve listened to on social impact?

Quick Recommendations

We asked current and alum Fellows to share their perspectives on their careers, social challenges, and resources that have influenced them in their careers, and more broadly, the world of social impact. This is the third in a four-part series.

What social challenges do you believe are the most important to solve?

We asked current and alum Fellows to share their perspectives on their careers, social challenges, and resources that have influenced them in their careers, and more broadly, the world of social impact. This is the second in a four-part series.

Tell us a little about your career path after the Fellowship. How did the Fellowship experience influence your career path?

We asked current and alum Fellows to share their perspectives on their careers, social challenges, and resources that have influenced them in their careers, and more broadly, the world of social impact. This is the first in a four-part series.

What advice would you give current or soon-to-be alumni Fellows as they’re beginning their careers?

Vanessa Barragán

2024 Fellowship Hosts

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