A Meaningless Vision & Mission



““My attitude was so terrible, I thought she was going to give up on me. I honestly thought I was going to get fired from UrbanPromise.””

— La'Mya, 2019 StreetLeader Alumni

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Every organization starts with a vision.

From that initial vision, a mission is born. Then: priorities, strategies, and action steps that bring form to the work, and figuring out measurable ways to determine success.

All of this matters.
AND
All of this is meaningless without one key ingredient: people.

If you’ve been around UrbanPromise for awhile, you might be familiar with our mission:

The mission of UrbanPromise Charlotte is to provide Charlotte’s youth and children with the spiritual, academic, and social development necessary to become Christian leaders determined to restore their communities.

WE take a 20-year leadership journey with students and their families:

• From ages 5-13, students attend UPC’s AfterSchool and Summer Camp Programs.

• During high school, students are employed at “StreetLeaders” and receive college access support themselves.

• From ages 18-25, StreetLeader Alumni receive support so they graduate college and find meaningful post-graduate employment.

But who exactly is the “WE” taking this leadership journey with students? 

For students like La’Mya, a 2019 StreetLeader Alumni from our West Charlotte Site, the “WE” is everything.

“My mom was incarcerated from my childhood, so she was absent from my life. I grew up with my father, but not having a mother figure definitely had an impact on me,” La’Mya recalls. “Because I didn’t have my mom, that important person to communicate to, it took a toll on my attitude and how I talked to others."

When La’Mya first joined UPC’s staff as a StreetLeader in 2017, she was struggling with anger issues that were affecting every area of her life.

Coming to UrbanPromise had an immediate impact on her — not only did she start receiving a steady paycheck, but she remembers how serving as a StreetLeader allowed her to gain valuable perspective by “seeing actual people who faced the same problems or even worse situations than I did.”

But despite these positive developments in her life, La’Mya almost didn’t make it as a StreetLeader. When her anger issues threatened to sabotage a key relationship at UP — her relationship with her boss — La'Mya feared the worst and prepared to walk away or be shown the door.

“When I first began at UP,  me and Rolanda didn’t have any type of bond or relationship. I didn’t connect with her.”

Rolanda is UPC’s West Charlotte Site Director; when La’Mya started at UPC Rolanda was serving as the site’s StreetLeader Director.

“It was a constant clashing,” Rolanda remembers. “I knew La’Mya had a difficult time trusting adults, and I was someone new in her life. Not only was I new, but I was holding her accountable as her manager. Anytime I gave her feedback or tried to help her do better, to her it felt like an attack. Her response to feeling attacked was the only way she knew how to respond: with anger.”

In a situation like this, an organization’s vision + mission fall flat on their own. UPC strives to raise leaders, but without skilled, passionate, committed people embodying that vision and carrying out the daily work, a challenging crossroads can quickly become a dead end.

Fortunately, our UrbanPromise staff saw the best in La’Mya, and they were determined to help her rise above her troubles.  

“There was a day when Dionté*, Rolanda, and me got together to talk,” La’Mya recalls. “In that conversation, I realized how much she loves us [the StreetLeaders]. I took it all the wrong way. I realized she never meant any harm.”

[*Dionté was UPC’s West Charlotte Site Director at the time and an adult who La'Mya trusted. He and his wife, Meg, have since gone on to launch UrbanPromise Los Angeles.] 

“Her perspective of me was that I was a ‘danger zone’,” Rolanda recalls. “It was a pivotal moment for her, realizing that, actually, I was always in her corner.”

La'Mya (center) celebrating with the West Site staff and her peers at Senior Signing Day 2019

In the years since La’Mya made the brave decision to trust Rolanda as someone who holds her best interests in mind, their relationship has changed drastically. They now communicate on a day-to-day basis and can “talk on the phone for hours”.

In addition to gaining a “big sister”, La’Mya knows that Dionté’s and Rolanda’s skilled determination not to give up on her had other lasting effects:

“If I had not come to UrbanPromise I probably would not be in college today. I would have had the opportunity, yeah, but I don’t know who would have helped me, who would have guided me through everything it took to get there. I probably still would have attitude problems. I know I wouldn’t have built a relationship with God.”

Today La’Mya is a leader on the campus of Fayetteville State University where she is a junior majoring in Criminal Justice and minoring in Biology. Last year she was appointed by her peers to serve as sophomore class vice president, and this year she is serving as junior class secretary along with holding a leadership position in her residence hall and working as a “Bronco Ambassador” who stewards incoming students.

“I have overcome and seen myself for who I am, and now I can go out and lead others. I can stand out for who I am and share my stories to become an inspiration.”

La’Mya’s story of transformation and growth is a beautiful representation of the vision we hold for every student who comes through UPC’s doors. But that vision simply will not materialize without people like Rolanda and Dionté — UPC’s dedicated staff members who embody the vision and skillfully carry it out.

UrbanPromise Charlotte employs 142 staff members:

• 17 adults on our core team

• 100 high school StreetLeaders

• 12 part-time literacy teachers

• 13 StreetLeader Alumni who return as Summer Interns

When you invest in UPC’s staff, you are commissioning a multi-generational leadership model that ultimately impacts more than 550 students, StreetLeaders, and Alumni, ages 5-25. You are empowering our adult staff members, like Rolanda, to invest in our high school staff members, like La’Mya, so that they can in turn become leaders for younger students and transform their greater communities. 

La'Mya & Rolanda (center, striped shirt & pink dress) celebrating the 2021 class of West Site seniors at Senior Signing Day

“Giving up on people is easy,” Rolanda says. “But it’s not something that Jesus would do. He wouldn't walk away from someone who is struggling. Jesus chases after the one. He still shepherds the 99, but he goes after the one. Giving up on La’Mya would have been what she expected because everyone in her circle before UrbanPromise may have done that. But how you get to know Christ is by people who know Him modeling who He is to you.”

Our staff always shines, but they have shined particularly bright during the last two years of the Covid pandemic. Thank you for valuing the incredible people who work relentlessly to bring UPC’s vision and mission to life. La’Mya’s story would not be possible without your generosity and support!

La'Mya with campers at the "Joy of Giving" Christmas celebration

UrbanTrekkers Zip Through the NC Mountains in First Overnight Trip of 2021

This month UrbanTrekkers hosted our first overnight trip since the start of the pandemic, taking sixteen StreetLeaders from all four of our neighborhood sites plus a team of five UrbanPromise staff members on an adventure to the North Carolina mountains!

Our Trekkers engaged in a variety of outdoor and indoor activities throughout the weekend, from traveling across a zipline course with ten lines (including one nearly 300 feet above the ground!) to hiking the beautiful Rough Ridge trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway.

It was also so special to welcome Francisco Gonzalez, our South Site Middle School Director, to the Trekkers leadership team just in time for this trip. He did an amazing job facilitating, and we're so grateful to be able to resume our overnight trips this school year!

Each Trekker student was given a notebook and a pen at the start of the trip with the challenge of engaging in personal reflection by writing about their experiences. We shared all our meals together and spent time talking about our lives, our leadership and our faith journeys through several reflection sessions as a whole group.

All in all, our StreetLeaders looked back on the trip with a sense of joy and a strong feeling of connection with the UrbanPromise community. A huge thank you to our broader community of UP partners and donors who made this trip possible. We're grateful for you!

*We made sure our community was as safe as possible, requiring everyone to obtain a negative Covid test prior to the trip and encouraging mask use throughout.

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UrbanTrekkers is an extension of UrbanPromise’s StreetLeader Program — it seeks to complement our highly successful academic initiatives with outside expeditionary learning opportunities. Learn more about the program and how you can get involved on the UrbanTrekkers page of our website!

What Is The Cost If We're Stopping Short?

This is post 5/5 in a series highlighting students on “The 20-Year Journey” at UrbanPromise. UP's holistic, long-term support of students from Kindergarten to college graduation and beyond is what sets our program apart, and we couldn't empower our students without you. Thank you so much for committing to our students for the long haul!

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Picture this:

According to the Pell Institute, 26% of low-income, first-generation college students leave higher education after their first year. Only 34% of this same group of students earn a bachelor’s degree after six years.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but only one word seems needed when considering statistics like these: troubling. 

Would a thousand questions make more sense, then? Or perhaps a thousand solutions?

Maybe. But if you show these statistics to CiCi, she has something else to offer in return.

CiCi has a story.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Many of you already know CiCi — four years ago she joined our UrbanPromise staff as the StreetLeader Director at UP’s South Boulevard Site. Additionally, in the last year she has taken ownership over UP’s StreetLeader Mentoring Program.

CiCi is also a first-generation college student.

“I was a strong student in high school — I was graduating top of my class,” CiCi recalls. “But it was the summer before my senior year before I even thought about college.”

Like many other first-generation students, applying to college felt, to CiCi, like stepping into a foreign land. It wasn’t until her guidance counselor asked her about the SAT — which she had not yet taken — that CiCi realized she might be behind in the process.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t have plans in my mind, but nobody had really stopped and asked ‘what are you doing?’” CiCi recalls. “I had no idea what I should be preparing for.”

CiCi’s family had no experience with the process and, thus, was not familiar with the myriad of application requirements and deadlines. Additionally, her hardworking single mom didn’t have a lot of extra time to dig into it with her.

Despite these challenges, CiCi was successful in earning college acceptance, and ultimately she enrolled at Pacific Azusa University. In hindsight, though, she recognizes that she “wasn’t smart in playing the application game” and “had no idea what I was biting off with finances.”

Still — a success story, right?

That depends on where you think the story ends.

Liz (middle) with two other StreetLeader Alumni

ONE JOURNEY ENDS, ANOTHER BEGINS

“Right off the bat in college, I had a lot of trouble academically,” Liz recalls.

Liz is a 2018 StreetLeader Alumni — she was a StreetLeader at our South Boulevard Site during her 10th & 11th grade years, and then she used her leadership experience to help launch a new UrbanPromise site in East Charlotte as a senior.

Like CiCi, Liz is also a first-generation college student.

“I remember thinking college wasn’t for me just because of the financial aspect,” Liz recalls. “I didn’t see how I could afford it. But UP really helped with FAFSA and helped us find scholarships. Especially with the language barrier, it can be hard for parents to know how to help.”

With guidance and empowerment from the UP staff, Liz earned acceptance to several schools and chose to enroll at UNC-Asheville. Her accomplishment was enormous and rightfully called for celebration. And who better to celebrate with Liz than someone like CiCi — another young woman who has also felt the joy of this particular achievement?

CiCi enjoys celebrating with students, but she also never loses sight of what might lie ahead.

“Every pitfall you can think of [entering college as a first-generation student], I experienced,” CiCi says. “I was as prepared as I could be academically, but I hadn’t built habits around how to keep my grades up with the new freedom. Also, how do I balance school with a part-time job?”

Lots of new college students experience academic challenges — it’s not uncommon for newfound independence to distract newbies of all backgrounds and abilities.

But, for CiCi, academic challenges were only the tip of the iceberg. Like many first-generation students of color who attend “PWIs” (Primarily White Institutions), CiCi felt alone, confused, and very out of place.

“I immediately experienced homesickness and culture shock, and I didn’t have anybody to reach out to who would understand that,” she remembers. “UP offers an early culture of caring for mental health, but that was not something I was familiar with. I had no healthy coping mechanisms for anxiety and depression. I almost lost my scholarships, and I found myself in unhealthy spaces that could have jeopardized my entire future.”

It was a deeply difficult season for CiCi, but it’s also the part of her story that now gives her such exceptionally clear vision.

While many of us are scratching our heads over why 26% of first-generation college students might leave higher education after only a single year, CiCi is busy getting to work.

SOMEWHERE TO TURN

Like CiCi, the academic challenges Liz found herself wresting with during her freshman year were more of a symptom than a primary indicator of her preparedness or ability. The root of her struggle was something much more complex.

“The legal process started during my senior year and then dragged into freshman year too,” Liz recalls.

Her father was facing deportation to El Salvador, and the uncertainty of his fate paralyzed her, taking a massive toll on her ability to focus.

Like CiCi, Liz was also trying to find her place as a young woman of color on a primarily white campus.

Coming from “a space like UP where there is so much love and support from people who you feel comfortable around”, Liz found the transition to a new environment to be lonely.

But this is the point where CiCi’s and Liz’s stories diverge. Because, unlike CiCi, Liz knew exactly where to turn.

“One of my biggest support systems through all of it was UrbanPromise,” Liz recalls. “Just the constant checking in — staff would mention me for prayer, StreetLeaders would text me to check in on me. When I was dealing with a lot of shame [due to academic performance], I received love and affirmation that my circumstance played the biggest part in that — it was not a reflection of who I am, as a student or as a person.”

Also, UrbanPromise ensured that Liz would continue to receive free access to the crucial mental health counseling services that she had engaged in as a StreetLeader. She met weekly with her counselor via Zoom, which she credits to helping her maintain healthy coping strategies through a very stressful time.

WHAT IS THE COST IF WE’RE STOPPING SHORT?

Liz, now a rising senior, is back on track and is thriving. Her passion for community work — inspired by UP! — has deepened over the last three years, and now she is considering furthering her education to pursue a masters degree in either social work or in public policy. 

Liz has had to challenge a lot of statistics to get to where she is today. And it’s stories like her’s that have encouraged our team at UrbanPromise to ask one particular question when we consider the statistics surrounding the success of first-generation college students:

What is the cost if we’re stopping short?

Over the last eight years, UrbanPromise has done our best to support our growing number of StreetLeader Alumni. But even someone like Liz, who has certainly benefitted from that effort, can graciously acknowledge its limitations. 

“It’s understandable when UrbanPromise hasn’t been able to reach out, because they have other jobs running sites and everything,” she says. “But being able to have an actual point person who is in charge of StreetLeader Alumni and a system designed specifically for Alums — that will make a big difference.”

After eight years of offering informal measures of support to our StreetLeader Alumni as they navigate college, UrbanPromise Charlotte is launching our official Alumni Support Program this summer! And as for the “point person” Liz mentioned…

We can think of no better person to launch and direct this program than CiCi!

Aside from all of the crucial support and guidance she knows this program will offer students, CiCi is excited for the potential of the Alumni Support Program to build out the ‘Restore Community’ piece of UrbanPromise’s vision.

“There’s a difference between students saying ‘I know what my passion is’ and them saying ‘I want to be a leader’. How do we bring students back into the city to become leaders? How do we look for ways to amplify their voices, to leverage their experiences? How can we partner with leaders already established in the city? I want to really start connecting our StreetLeader Alumni to that ‘Restore Community’ piece.” 

THE 20-YEAR JOURNEY

Over the last six weeks, we’ve explored “The 20-Year Journey” of an UrbanPromise student together. This last stretch of the journey — a student’s college years and her first steps into restorative leadership — is the final, critical stretch, and one where we’re inviting you to grow with us!

The cost of stopping short is simply too high: If first-generation college students like CiCi and Liz aren’t able to defy statistics, it doesn’t only impact them. We all lose out on the vision and fruits of their leadership. And at UrbanPromise, we believe that their leadership is exactly what our city, and the world, needs.

We could not do any of this without you. Thank you for allowing us to deepen and expand the ways we empower our students so that they can, in turn, work to revitalize our city, and the world!

A Parent's Perspective

This is post 4/5 in a series highlighting students on “The 20-Year Journey” at UrbanPromise. UP's holistic, long-term support of students from Kindergarten to college graduation and beyond is what sets our program apart, and we couldn't empower our students without you. Thank you so much for committing to our students for the long haul!

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We aren’t the most important people.

On “The 20-Year Journey” from Kindergarten to a first post-grad job, a student will need a lot of support and guidance from positive influencers! At the end of the day, though, the most important people in our students lives can’t be found at UrbanPromise.

The most important people are found at home.

Piedad with her son, Steven

We’re taking a break this week from exploring the different stages of “The 20-Year Journey” to bring in a very important voice, one that speaks across the spectrum of a student’s life — the voice of an UrbanPromise parent.

Piedad is a mom from our South Boulevard Site who has two children have attended UrbanPromise programs for eight years! Her daughter, Daisy, was one of our very first StreetLeaders, and her son, Steven, is a rising ninth grader who we introduced you to a couple of weeks ago.

Back in the spring, our South Boulevard Site hosted an evening for the parents of new StreetLeaders. At UrbanPromise, we believe parent engagement and support is critical to a student’s success, so the evening was designed to help parents understand the expectations of the StreetLeader Program so they can partner in supporting their children through the experience.

At the event, our staff invited Piedad to be the “keynote speaker” — who better to address a group of parents than a fellow parent herself? This week we wanted to share the message that Piedad delivered to a room of her peers. Without further ado, let’s “pass the mic” to Piedad!

Daisy as a StreetLeader in 2015 in with camper Estefani. Estefani just graduated with our class of 2021 senior StreetLeaders!

"For me this is a good program. Not only because it provides a job for young students, but also because it helps them with their own school work, it motivates them, and it gives them guidance in going to college and being a good person.

From my experience with Daisy, she knew it was a commitment to the kids she was going to help. She had to have patience to help them with their school work and motivate them so they'd keep wanting to come to UrbanPromise and feel happy and safe.

Parents also have to help motivate their children to know that being a StreetLeader is more than a job, it's a commitment. They need to understand that they are not just studying, but that they have a job, too. They are studying to have a career in the future and a better life.

Their example doesn't only motivate the kids to become StreetLeaders, but it also shows them that their leadership will matter to the next generation.

Personally, I really like the program because it also psychologically helps the kids with their fears and problems. It's not just adults who have these problems, but also kids and even us, the parents. We need to also help them, and, here at UrbanPromise, they help us with all of it."

Steven, now a rising ninth grader and future StreetLeader, has been an UrbanPromise camper since he was in first grade!

When you support UrbanPromise, you aren’t only supporting students, you’re also supporting their families — parents like Piedad. 

THANK YOU for partnering with us to collectively empower UP students of all ages. They say it takes a village, and we are so privileged to be a part of their’s!

Becoming a HERO

This is post 3/5 in a series highlighting students on “The 20-Year Journey” at UrbanPromise. UP's holistic, long-term support of students from Kindergarten to college graduation and beyond is what sets our program apart, and we couldn't empower our students without you. Thank you so much for committing to our students for the long haul!

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When you ask a teenage boy to share how he felt during a day at his job, “emotional” might not be the way you’d expect him to respond. But that’s the word that Angel, an 11th grade StreetLeader at UP’s South Boulevard Site, picked to describe a day at work that he'll never forget!

Angel’s journey at UrbanPromise began seven years ago, as a quiet fourth grader who kept to himself most of the time.

“At first I was really shy,” Angel recalls. “But the more I came to UP, the more Ethan and Izzy really hyped me up. They just got to know me better, and they asked me lots of questions. They helped me start to be myself."

Ethan and Izzy, two of UP’s original StreetLeaders, are sometimes described as “legends” among the group of kids who launched UP back in 2013! It's because of their influence that Angel knew he wanted to become a StreetLeader too.

But it’s one thing to be inspired by your heroes, and another thing to learn how to become a hero yourself.

Angel and Ethan at camp in 2014

“At first being a StreetLeader was pretty hard,” Angel admits. “When I started, I still had friends who were younger campers, and it was really hard to separate from them. When you’re a camper you get taken care of, and now you’re the one taking care of others.”

As a new StreetLeader, Angel struggled with managing a classroom and “calming the kids down”. In addition, he was also contending with his own needs — the increased academic demands of high school weighed on him, and he was spending a lot of time making sure his grades were on track.

“Honestly, I don’t think my grades would be close to as good as they are without UP,” Angel says. “Francisco [Angel’s mentor and our UP South Middle School Director] has stayed after with me when I needed help with work and has helped me with lots of projects. If he was not in my life, I feel like my grades would be a lot different. He motivates me.”

As he grew in his role as a StreetLeader, Angel doubled down on his effort to support students in the way that Ethan, Izzy, and Francisco had supported him.

“I focused especially on having one-on-one talks with the campers and checking in,” Angel recalls. “I worked on helping them open up, the way I did.”

But still, Angel wondered if he was actually making a difference as a StreetLeader. How can you really know?

Every February UrbanPromise hosts a contest called “Strength to Love” where students of all ages write and deliver speeches about the people who inspire them. As a student takes the stage, a photo of the person he/she has chosen to honor flashes onto the screen.

Angel showed up to the 2020 Strength to Love speech contest mostly concerned with his own impending performance — he had written a speech about Francisco’s impact in his life that he was excited to share with the audience. He was also prepared to cheer on his campers as they spoke, but he hadn’t given much thought to who each of them might be speaking about.

“I hadn’t read the campers’ speeches, so I didn’t know who they were going to be talking about,” Angel remembers. “And then they [Genesis and Breiny, two elementary school campers] each got up there… and their pictures came up with me.”

Angel was shocked and truly touched. The two girls’ speeches were back-to-back, so he barely had time to process Genesis’s speech before Breiny’s began.

“I honestly got pretty emotional,” he laughs.

The words each young lady spoke reflected the energy and intentionality Angel had poured into their lives… in exactly the ways Ethan and Izzy had once poured into him.

“Angel thinks about campers before himself,” Genesis spoke to the crowd. “For example, every time he sees us, he checks in on us and asks how we are. Angel always comes to talk to us and says hi after a long day at school. I appreciate Angel for going out of his way to make others feel better before himself.”

Breiny's words were equally as meaningful:

“Angel never gives up on helping a camper when a camper is feeling down or just needs to chat. Angel is someone who I look up to because he makes me feel at home. He is a StreetLeader that I would someday like to be!”

Participating in the StreetLeader program has helped Angel improve his grades, given him a vision for college, and connected him to transformational mentor support.

The experience has also helped him realize his power and potential in impacting others. He’s come a long way from the shy fourth grader who first walked through UP’s doors nearly a decade ago!

“Their speeches made me realize how much I had impacted them,” Angel says. “I realize I have helped them grow like the StreetLeaders before me helped me grow. I have found a sense of purpose here, just taking care of these kids. UrbanPromise a place where we watch each other grow, we care for each other, and we get to be our best selves. Without UP I would not be myself.”

If you have ever supported UrbanPromise, then please know that you have supported Angel.

THANK YOU for making "The 20-Year Journey" possible for UrbanPromise students like him. It ends up transforming their own lives... and impacting the lives of so many others, too!

Later in the evening, Angel was able to channel his emotions into his own speech about Francisco. Here is the WINNING SPEECH Angel delivered about the mentor who has made such a difference in his life!