After our first meeting, Ms. Lopez invited me to sit in on one...

After our first meeting, Ms. Lopez invited me to sit in on one of her staff meetings. It had been a tough week for many of the teachers, and from the heavy energy in the room, I could feel the immense difficulty of their jobs. “It can be especially hard when you come back from holiday break,” Ms. Lopez explained. “Because it can feel like so much of the progress you made last semester was undone during the break. It’s hard, it’s hard, it’s hard. And it’s OK for you to feel like you want to give up. You can quit anytime you want, and I will pick up the phone and recommend you for a new job, because every one of you could succeed anywhere. But these kids need you. Our girls don’t feel honored and respected. Our boys are being recruited into gangs. Your classrooms may be the one place they feel safe and respected. If we give up, there is nobody else. There is a system out there that is waiting for our scholars to show up in shackles and jumpsuits if we choose to give up on them.”

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We are currently holding a campaign to institute an annual class trip to Harvard for students at Ms. Lopez’s school, Mott Hall Bridges Academy. Thanks to everyone who’s donated, we have raised $185,000 in just a few hours. That is a transformative amount of money, and will fund this initiative for over six years. I would love to continue adding to the fund, so that this trip will become a permanent part of the school’s backbone. In turn, it will hopefully help MHBA become a permanent part of the community’s backbone. If you haven’t already donated, please take a look: http://bit.ly/1JmIB8u

To everyone who donated— thank you, thank you, thank you. I truly fell in love with this school during my visits, and you have lent so much energy to its mission.