From our Co-Founder and Executive Director, Alyssa Bowlby:

It has been our honor to serve our students, families, and partners for the last 12 years.

As is the case for so many nonprofits, our sunset (effective January 2025) has come primarily out of financial necessity.

Thank you for supporting us for our 12 years of hard work. I'll never be able to thank you enough for your support - for your love, passion, and dedication.

I'm incredibly proud of the 12 years of work we did and all the students whose lives we made actionably, measurably better - out in the world in every walk of life, with greater belief in themselves, improved critical thinking, and an open-er mind than they otherwise might have had.  Here on our website are faces of those children (now adults!) whom I love ferociously and who are succeeding in their own ways, writing their own stories.  Thank you for your support in making our students' success that much more possible.

The thing I’m most proud of is how hard we worked to genuinely make change.  I can say with complete sincerity that there was never a day we at Yleana didn’t all work to make the world better and help our kids succeed with every fiber of our being.  I am most proud that our curriculum had rigor and our interventions had teeth and our work, on the whole, had more impact that many people thought was possible.  Our students succeeded in ways folks wouldn't have believed.  THAT IS IMPACT.  And that's the best thing I could hope for.

A lot of folks, when they find out Yleana is sunsetting, are extremely sad. I am also really sad.  I was never happier than teaching; being around all those kids having epiphanies about how smart they were was my spirit’s lifeblood.

I fundamentally believe that children are our future and to make them smart, safe, confident, and critical thinkers is the best thing we can do for ourselves and for them! I’m a firm believer that serving our students is actually caring for our community, which makes all of us stronger. And if there’s one thing I’ve taken away from the increased polarization and decreased emphasis on the truth in our country, we need empathy and community and long-term, context-rich, critical thinking and macro oversight MOST right now.

I try to take comfort that each of our small actions adds up to a multitude - I do believe that, and I hope that in my next act, I'm able to continue making the world tangibly better.  Students in underserved schools in their formative years need support, service, and love perhaps more than anyone.  I urge you to continue working to make that come true in your daily life, whether through financial support, the gift of your time, or just the intentions with which you vote and make decisions about your community.

Thank you for supporting our kids and a belief that we would be able to make students better critical thinkers and thus better equipped to take on the challenges of a crazy world.  Although it saddens me beyond words to end Yleana, my board keeps reminding me that WE DID IT for 12 years and that that is something to be SO PROUD OF.  That for those 12 years, we worked like crazy to achieve our goals and were able to make measurable change, which we see in the eyes of our students and know when they hug us and tell us they wouldn’t have made it without us. Thank you for your support with everything Yleana has been and everything our kids will continue to be.  Thank you for really, honestly, contributing to 12 years of amazing change.  You are a change-maker - and that's a beautiful thing to be.

Dan, our co-founder and Elda’s son, gave me a piece of her jewelry - a necklace of a tumi. I never take it off - it is close to my heart every day - carrying the reminder of our work and our kids and everything wonderful we believe about the power of education. Elda’s belief in education is something that we keep with us, that lives beyond her and beyond the organization that was her namesake. It is my north star as I move into the next act of my life.

If I can leave you with two takeaways from my time at Yleana - I believe fervently that we must:

• Care for our those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, our veterans, our disabled, and anyone who’s been marginalized or disenfranchised over time. It is incumbent upon us to ensure no one takes advantage of these folks and we do our best to give them the tools to succeed in our society.

• Ensure people are educated, critical thinkers. An educated populace makes better decisions for itself and for the community, both short-term and long-term.

And please don’t give up! It feels like a dark time, but it’s always darkest before the dawn.

For the final time - with a heart full of Yleana love,

Alyssa