March 2023

Winter Update
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Click on photo to read Jennyfer's profile.

New Changes to RTE

Rise Together Education is pleased to announce changes to our Board of Directors. We welcome Tida Violante as President of the Board of Directors. Tida has served in various roles with RTE for the past 4.5 years: writing funding proposals, recruiting new volunteers and assisting students with professional networking. Read more about Tida here. Past President Dawn Billman will remain on the board and will use her expertise to focus on the critical task of fundraising. 

RTE also welcomes RTE alumnus Dami Bolarina (Paly’s Class of 2017 and Notre Dame de Namur University Class of 2020) to our Board of Directors. Read about Dami here. Dami is currently working with alumni Sammy Vasquez (SFSU ‘20) and Sara Aguillar (Menlo College ‘21) to strengthen our RTE scholars’ community. We are looking forward to engaging more RTE alumni to help make the lives of current RTE scholars easier and to build a supportive community. 
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"At first when I heard during my senior year [at Paly] that I was a part of RTE, I thought great, I will have scholarship money! But by the time I got to my second year of courses, and with Covid isolation, it was really RTE's mentorship, resources, and guidance to advocate for myself that got me through. I would not have achieved this without RTE and my mentor's help.”  

- David Wei, Computer Engineering, SJSU '23
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Program Update

We have changed our fiscal year to align with the academic year. The next Annual Report will be released in July. A quick glance at 2022 shows that 8 out of 9 students from Paly’s Class of 2018 completed their bachelor’s degree. One transferred from a community college and will graduate next year. We currently mentor nearly 60 scholars and are planning to mentor and award scholarships to about 20 more Paly grads from the Class of 2023.
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Employer Matching

Employer matching increases the impact of your contribution to  RTE, so, if your employer offers this benefit, please make sure to take advantage of it. Companies such as Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Google, Hewlett Packard, Intel, LinkedIn, Symantec, Synopsys, Varian, and many others all have employee matching programs!
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Annual Fundraiser

RTE’s annual fundraising campaign will kick off on May 1st. We are seeking generous donors for seed money to create a matching grant for this fundraising campaign. Please join us in helping more neighbors reach their dreams of earning a college degree!
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Volunteer with us

Do you feel strongly about closing the wealth gap, leveling the playing field, and achieving equity in higher education? Let’s put your skills to good use! Please email us to help RTE. 

Do you know a Paly student who might want to serve as a Representative to the Board for '23-'24? Read more​.

Meet our students & your new interns!

Do you have summer internships or jobs for college students? Please let us know!​ You can read about some of our amazing students by reading profiles of RTE students here and watching their short Vocal Videos here.
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We appreciate your support of our scholars who are working hard towards their dream of earning bachelor's degrees. Best wishes and stay dry! Thank you.

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