College Possible Oregon, a national nonprofit dedicated to making college accessible to historically underserved communities, announced funding from the Wildhorse Foundation in the amount of $5,000 to support the Navigate program.
College Possible’s Navigate high school pilot program serves historically underserved students in eight rural Oregon high schools across four counties. This funding will support 62 students at Irrigon, McLoughlin, Riverside and Umatilla high schools.
When College Possible students earn their college degrees, the impact has the power to transform our shared communities. Yeidi, a Riverside High School alum and current University of Portland student, recently reflected on her journey with College Possible:
I’ve truly learned how to prioritize my tasks and organize myself a lot better. I’ve also learned to appreciate and embrace failure a lot too. There truly is more than one way to get where you want to go and sometimes the setbacks are just growth opportunities that better prepare us for when we get there. It took me a while to see it but having so many people around my side that stuck with me through everything and continued to believe in me really helped me. I think my College Possible high school coach is still one of my biggest supporters to this day.”
The Wildhorse Foundation is managed by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in partnership with Wildhorse Resort & Casino. Every year the foundation donates over $1 million to local programs and services working in the areas of arts, cultural activities, education, environmental protection, gambling addition prevention, education and treatment, historic preservation, public health, public safety and salmon restoration. Almost 1,500 organizations have received project funding from the Wildhorse Foundation.
About: College Possible is a national nonprofit that helps makes college admission and success possible for students from low-income backgrounds through an intensive curriculum of coaching and support and commitment to providing the tools, strategies and support that students need to navigate and overcome systemic barriers to college graduation.
As one of the largest and most successful college access and success programs in the country, since 2000 College Possible has helped put more than 50,000 students from underinvested communities nationwide on the path to economic mobility via completion of a college degree. Its proven near-peer coaching model, delivered by recent college grad AmeriCorps members, provides high-touch interventions proven to help students navigate and overcome the most common barriers to college access, persistence and degree completion. College Possible students are three times more likely to earn a college degree than their peers from similar backgrounds.
Headquartered in Saint Paul, MN, College Possible operates regional sites in Austin, TX; Chicago, IL; Milwaukee, WI; Omaha, NE; Philadelphia, PA; Portland, OR; and Seattle, WA; and has Catalyze college program partnerships in California, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Tennessee. For more information, visit CollegePossible.org.
