ANNUAL REPORT

From the Executive Director

Dear Friends and Supporters,

The 2022-2023 academic year marked UrbanPromise Charlotte’s tenth year as an organization. A full Decade of Promise.

In the early years of UrbanPromise, when people would ask about how our work was going, I would often reply that we wouldn’t truly know until a few years later — we would need to wait and see if the “cycle of leadership” we dreamt about would truly unfold.

Would our elementary and middle school students truly grow up to become the next generation of StreetLeaders? Would our StreetLeaders go on to complete post-secondary education and begin serving as leaders to reflect Jesus in their communities as adults?

Ten years later, we are witnessing this cycle of leadership take root.

Our earliest campers have become StreetLeaders across our sites. Our earliest StreetLeaders have now become UrbanPromise alumni who are graduating from college and pursuing meaningful careers in education, health care, business, and more. And one UrbanPromise alumna is now a member of our full-time staff team.

During the 2022-2023 academic year, your investment helped our students continue to grow and achieve at each stage of their 20-year leadership journey through UrbanPromise programs. For the tenth consecutive summer, our younger students grew more than three months in their reading abilities during our six-week summer programs. For the ninth consecutive year, 100% of our senior StreetLeaders graduated high school on time and received college acceptance. And 83% of our 163 alumni are still enrolled in or have completed post-secondary education.

Thank you so much for helping us keep our promise.
This report is for you – members of the UrbanPromise community who have believed and invested in our students, StreetLeaders, and alumni during the past year (and, for many of you, the past 10 years).

As you read the stories in the following pages, may you be inspired by the stories of growth and leadership you helped make possible at UrbanPromise last year. And may you be encouraged by the ways our students, StreetLeaders, and alumni reflect Jesus’ transformative love as they serve as agents of God’s love, justice, hope, and peace in the city of Charlotte and beyond.

Grace and Peace,

Jimmy