Today, I will sit down with my family around the dinner table – like many of you – and reflect on my many reasons to be grateful. Our intertwined, diverse, committed Higher Achievement family is at the center of my gratitude.
As I consider our Thanksgiving table metaphorically, Higher Achievement is the table cloth: a tightly-woven social fabric that is underneath everything. When we bring together scholars and mentors from different neighborhoods, we tighten the social fabric of our community. When we work to more deeply understand each other across difference, we tighten the social fabric. When we help scholars carve a path to become first-generation college graduates, we tighten the social fabric.
This tighter social fabric is woven from many threads: our 1100+ scholars and their families, our 50+ board and advisory board members, our 80+ full-time staff, our 500+ mentors, our 3000+ donors, and our more than 10,000 scholar alumni and thousands more former staff, mentors, and supporters.
We are weaving this fabric every day: every night of center, every event with our scholars in the spotlight, and every conversation to tackle a challenge or celebrate a success. With each weaving motion, we get stronger and better together.
This social fabric can protect us in hard times, and it can brighten our tables in joyful times. We must never take it for granted. And, we must always tend to our weaving. With every new scholar, mentor, or contact, we grow our fabric and our community.
This tighter social fabric is the fuel that drives me to recommit to Higher Achievement, year after year, for 17 years.
I am grateful for every one of you – threads and weavers.
Many thanks,
Lynsey Wood Jeffries, CEO