Description
ALL WAYS UP started by offering a scholarship to any high school graduate who lived in Section 8 housing and enrolled in a two- or four-year college or university. These students were given scholarships of up to $2,500 a year to ease the financial burden of college. After seeing the impact of this initial effort, ALL WAYS UP soon began to offer Section 8 residents other services, including summer camp scholarships for children and home ownership down payment grants for couples and families saving every spare penny to buy their first home.
As ALL WAYS UP began to evolve, it discovered another way to create positive change:
To partner with community-based, non-profit organizations that were running programs for low-income, hard-working, motivated participants.
In 2012, ALL WAYS UP broadened its charity partner outreach by launching the Bridging the Gap Awards (BGA), a grant that assisted smaller-sized non-profits working hard to help low-income residents all around the country. Through partnerships with these grass-roots charities, ALL WAYS UP has expanded its giving programs to include college scholarships and an annual UP Through Education Summit for students entering their first year of college. To date, through the BGAs and other initiatives, ALL WAYS UP has funded more than 40 community partners and approximately 200 education scholarships.
