Date
3 min read
Summer is in full swing at OppNet! While the summer represents the close of the school year, our community continues to take action and take care throughout the summer months.
Our newest class of 167 11th grade Fellows are attending our annual Summer Institute, an intensive two-week orientation program where they will gain foundational knowledge of our Career Fluency® curriculum. Additionally, from internships and career exposure programs to college test prep and summer classes, the rest of our Fellows are exploring their options as they continue to refine their own definitions of success. We continue celebrating students through our #SummerOfOpportunity campaign, as well as the impact of our community of supporters – including generous donors to this year's virtual Opportunity On-Demand Gala, the growth of our Board of Directors, and our most recent partnership with and grant from Salesforce . We are also continuing conversations on racial equity, career exploration, and increasing opportunity with amazing individuals like New York Managing Partner at Deloitte, Roger G. Arrieux, Jr. through our Opportunity Talks series, as well as longtime partners such as Macquarie.
The heat is real this summer, as our community is as active as ever in realizing our vision to equip learners with the tools to thrive in college, in career and beyond. We hope you will join us!
We are so proud to have hosted our first-ever Opportunity On-Demand Gala, a virtual experience celebrating our community of supporters and showcasing the incredible stories of our student and alumni Opportunity Award Recipients.
Thank you to all who rallied to support OppNet so generously this year and who we are proud to feature on our Gala website. This year we raised over $2.6MM to support our work to break down barriers to opportunity for the 10,000+ first-generation college students of color we serve throughout NYC and the country.
A special thank you to the Meringoff Family Foundation for matching donations dollar for dollar up to $25,000 and strengthening OppNet’s internship and enrichment programming for our Fellows this summer. And if you haven’t yet, there’s still time to donate and double the impact of your gift.
We are hopeful that we will be able to celebrate safely together at Cipriani Wall Street next year and can’t wait to see you there!
FELLOWS IN ACTION
From our newest class of 11th graders to our seasoned college students, our Fellows community is rigorously preparing for their next steps. Whether it's laying down the foundations of college and career success through Summer Institute, preparing stellar college applications through our College Application Boot Camp, or engaging in college and career readiness lessons through our Summer Series, our Fellows are working hard this summer towards their unique definitions of success.
CAREER FLUENCY® PARTNERSHIP UPDATES
Our Partnerships team continued their work with Newark’s summer youth employment program, where 260 young people in Newark will experience OppNet’s Summer Science Research Program (SSRP). We are also excited to announce a new partner, High School for Health Careers and Sciences, a bilingual (English/Spanish) community high school in Washington Heights. The team is working on translating 8 lessons from English to Spanish for grades 11 and 12 during the 2021-22 school year.
OPPORTUNITY TALKS
We are honored to have been joined by Roger G. Arrieux, Jr., New York Managing Partner at Deloitte for our Opportunity Talks Virtual Fireside Chat series last month! We are so grateful for the wisdom he imparted to our Fellows and wider OppNet community. Check out this clip from our conversation with Roger on the value of a network—and going beyond a single handshake.
For more clips from our previous speakers, check out our YouTube playlist.
Last month Jessica Pliska, OppNet Founder and Head of Leadership Giving, interviewed Neda Daneshzadeh, co-founder of Prelude Growth Partners, one of the only investment firms founded solely by women. Read the full interview on Forbes here.
