Now that the school year is in full swing, this month’s blog post is about one of our fantastic partners making education in Buffalo more accessible. Say Yes Buffalo, originally formed in 2011, forges connections between local schools and corporate, philanthropic, and non-profit organizations in a push to help students graduating high school afford tuition costs as they pursue higher education. Since then, Say Yes Buffalo has continued to expand the ways it helps students with their futures, including extracurricular school programs and training for eventual employment.
Icheiry Rivera, Mentoring Supervisor for Workforce Development at Say Yes Buffalo, spoke to us about the organization’s mission and the effort that has gone into it. She highlighted how Say Yes Buffalo is involved with schools across the city: “We have staff that are in elementary schools and high schools throughout Buffalo. We have family support specialists serving as case workers and community school navigators putting on Saturday school activities.”
The partnership between Mission: Ignite and Say Yes Buffalo has its roots in our Tech360 program. Rivera explained that she and fellow staff members introduced Tech360 into their Saturday school programs in 2018. “Because of the connections we have with students,” she said, “we realized a lot of them don’t always have internet, and they definitely don’t all have computers available to them.”
The relationship with Mission: Ignite would end up proving invaluable when the pandemic started. “During Covid, schools were getting laptops to students as quickly as possible,” said Rivera, “but then we thought: ‘What about students who are about to start college?’ That first year, we worked with Mission: Ignite to get computers for them, and we have continued to use Mission: Ignite almost exclusively in our initiative since then.”
Rivera said she is glad that Say Yes Buffalo was able to work with a local organization because it made laptops so easily accessible: “I have known students who have had issues with their computers because they have owned them for four years now and I have been able to say. ‘Go to Mission: Ignite and see if they can be fixed. If they cannot be fixed, you can donate it to keep the recycling process going. On top of that, they sell super reasonably priced laptops!’ This has been a phenomenal service that I cannot speak highly enough of.”
According to Rivera, the future of Say Yes Buffalo is bright, and the organization is creating new ways to improve students’ prospects. “We’re expanding our workforce development training,” she said. “We have apprenticeship programs that connect students with local employers. We’re helping people find employment opportunities and eventually increasing economic development in Buffalo.”
We share Rivera’s excitement about this partnership, and we look forward to whatever the future holds! If you would like to learn more about, Say Yes Buffalo, the work they do, and how you can help, click the link here: https://sayyesbuffalo.org/.
