NON-PROFIT GENERATION HOPE EXPANDS INTERGENERATIONAL STUDENT PARENT PROGRAM TO NEW ORLEANS

New Orleans' Scholar Program set to begin Summer 2023 is dedicated to ensuring young families thrive

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Non-profit Generation Hope announced today that New Orleans, Louisiana will be their newest location for their Scholar Program. The program is designed to surround young parents with mentoring, tuition assistance, a peer community and other vital, wrap-around services to help them earn their college degrees. Generation Hope is set to officially welcome its first class of scholars in the summer of 2023, partnering with local universities, organizations, and advocates to bolster student parent work in the area.

"When I founded Generation Hope over a decade ago, my hope was to help young parents reach the other side of the upward battle to a college degree by giving them the resources and village of support they deserve," said Nicole Lynn Lewis, Founder and CEO of Generation Hope. "Our goal has consistently been to deliver impactful, holistic programming to young parents that works to alleviate the myriad of struggles they face. In the past 12 years, we've not only been able to deliver that, but we've built an ecosystem of amazing scholars, dedicated partners, and advocates who are working towards the same goal. Today, I am thrilled to start the journey of expanding our ecosystem and this work to New Orleans."  

Founded in 2010, Generation Hope works with education and policy partners to drive systemic change and provide direct support to young parents in college as well as their children through holistic, two-generation programming. Their Scholar Program focuses on providing wrap-around services for young parents in college while their early childhood program, Next Generation Academy, simultaneously helps their children prepare for elementary school success. Parents enrolled in the Scholar program will receive a multitude of resources and services including tuition assistance, crisis assistance and emergency funding, mentoring, mental health and career support, and more.

Since its inception, Generation Hope has been dedicated to changing statistics that say fewer than 2% of teen mothers earn a college degree before the age of 30, and more than half of all parenting college students leave school without a degree. They have worked with more than 300 young parents in college and have celebrated nearly 150 degrees earned. Scholars enrolled in the program graduate at a rate that is the same as all college graduates whether they are parenting or not and eight times the rate of single mothers nationwide.

Currently, 23% of all undergraduate students in New Orleans are parenting. The city also has the third-highest teen birth rate in the nation. The New Orleans Scholar Program is an opportunity to extend the success Generation Hope has garnered in the D.C. metro area and deliver targeted programming to help young families succeed and experience economic mobility.

"Generation Hope could not come to New Orleans at a more critical time," said Rhonda Broussard, CEO and Founder of Beloved Community. "Their model will increase educational attainment and economic mobility for young parents and their children for years to come. I'm encouraged to see how this will improve outcomes for our entire city."

For the past year, Generation Hope has strategized with internal and external partners to evaluate current programming and potential locations to replicate their model in tandem with local leaders and organizations. This expansion will build on Generation Hope's work to scale and institute a collaborative model with community, education, and policy partners committed to ensuring young families have every opportunity to succeed. 

To follow updates about the New Orleans Scholar Program and Generation Hope, please visit generationhope.org.

To ensure all student parents have the opportunities to succeed and experience economic mobility, Generation Hope engages education and policy partners to drive systemic change and provides direct support to teen parents in college as well as their children through holistic, two-generation programming. @supportgenhope

Media Contacts:
Dreena Whitfield, [email protected], 908.588.2602
Brionna Miller, [email protected], 973.861.3554

SOURCE Generation Hope