actionnow.org

Name: Daniell Gray

Age: 26

Community: North Lawndale

Graduation Date: Spring 2011

While working as a teacher’s assistant at a daycare, I realized how much I loved children. I wasn’t the best student in high school, so I really didn’t think that college was for me. However, through working with GYO, I have realized that not only am I college material, but I’m leadership material. This program is helping me reach all of my goals, and giving me the support and training needed to be a leader in the Chicago Public School system. I know I’ll be able to tackle any issue head on in order to make Chicago schools a better learning and working environment.

GYO provides opportunities for people in the low-income communities, the same people that other programs normally pass-up. It brings the community and the schools closer together, making the community feel more like a “family”. GYO teachers and parents are able to build better relationships because they are all coming from the same community, the same environment, and dealing with the same issues. GYO teachers also make sure that the students see a brighter future by showing the students that the teachers have come from the same neighborhood and dealt with the same issues, but yet were able to succeed. In return, schools will see lower dropout rates, higher graduation rates and more students going off to college or into the workforce as productive members of society.

After my testimony, if you’re not on the phone calling your local elected officials in order to have a GYO program in your neighborhood, I don’t know what more I can say. GYO is the wave of the future. I am so lucky that a program like GYO came around to help me continue on the road to reaching my goals.

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