More Than Bootstraps Receives $10,000 Donation
| WESTFIELD and PASSAIC, NEW JERSEY – June 22, 2022.
More Than Bootstraps (MTB), a New Jersey non-profit dedicated to helping low-income, first-generation students access and succeed in higher education, has received an anonymous $10,000 donation from a generous family foundation in Westfield, New Jersey. The funds will be used to support and expand the successful MTB program for students from the Passaic City School District.
Founded by Audrey Fisch, a long-time Westfield resident and college professor, More Than Bootstraps addresses the challenges first-generation, low-income students face in getting to and succeeding in higher education. MTB builds on these students’ strengths to create a sustainable pathway to and through college. The organization provides first-generation high school students with near-peer mentors, current college students from their community. These mentors meet weekly with their high school mentees and follow a curriculum of activities focused on personal and professional development, college and financial aid awareness, and communication with families. Once a month, the full group convenes for workshops and guest presentations.
Grants and donations to More Than Bootstraps fund the monthly stipends that allow the high school and college students in the program some time and space to devote to their professional development and college-going activities while still meeting their financial responsibilities.
MTB launched in Westfield on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 2020. Donations from individuals, including many Westfield residents, and local organizations, such as Temple Emanu-El of Westfield, the Westfield Rotary Club, the Westfield-based Union Innovation NJ Alliance (UNINJA), and the Westfield Foundation, provided resources to support five college student Leaders and six high school Fellows in the first year of operation in the Passaic community. In 2021-2022, MTB expanded to serve 12 high school Fellows and six college student Leaders. The recent donation will allow MTB to continue to support underrepresented students from Passaic, expanding to 18 high school Fellows and nine college student Leaders.
In May 2022, MTB celebrated the high school graduation of its first cohort of high school Fellows. |
| Pictured from left to right are Marisol, Catherine, our speaker Ingrid Renderos, Rogreka Clayton (our graduating College Student Leader), Ashley, and Audrey Fisch, our President. (One additional Fellow, Jennifer, is not pictured.) |
| Now entering its third year of operations, the organization is grateful to strong public support from individuals and institutions, including the KearnyBank Foundation, Investors Bank Foundation, Comodo, Revivn, Investors Bank and the Investors Bank Foundation, and PNC Bank. Interested donors are invited to visit the MTB website: www.morethanbootstraps.org/donate.
“We are enormously grateful for this donation and the recognition of our program’s contribution to the higher-education success of first-generation students,” said Audrey Fisch, president of More Than Bootstraps. “Education remains transformational in the United States. It’s heartening that these donors have shared their resources to support the ambitious first-generation students in our program.”
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