What are you up to now?
I own my own immigration law firm
Scholar Category: Youth Mentoring
Bill Shrum
What are you up to now?
Graduate school at CU Boulder – Dept. of Communication
Andrew Hemphill
What are you up to now?
Studying my Masters in Childhood Studies and Children’s Rights in Germany.
Dylan Whitman
Juedon Kebede
What are you up to now?
Full time kindergarten teacher.
Vincent Torres
Brittany Morris
What are you up to now?
Getting my PhD in Clinical Psychology. My research is in reading and executive function in children.
Sarah (McCauley) Brewer
What are you up to now?
Public health research and community-based participatory research and interventions
Kevin McQuirk
Project: My project for the Puksta foundation is a year long mentorship between paired, college and high school students in the Denver Public Schools. The name for my mentoring program is Impact the Youth. Through Impact the Youth, I will immerse high school mentees into the higher education environment on the Auraria Campus. The high school students which Impact the Youth is designed for are minorities, undocumented people, and socio economic disadvantaged students that are in their second, third, or last year of high school. The goal of the project is to present these students multiple options of education through a university or community college. It is designed to show higher education as one of the best career options, encourage them to attend college, and remove any road block in the way of these goals. In Impact the Youth, I will build mentor-mentee relationships with high school students by inviting them attend activities at MSU Denver throughout the year. These activities could be a presentation, laboratory research, lecture, or event on the Auraria campus. This will allow high school students to be familiar with college campus and to experience many opportunities through organizations at MSU Denver. This will also provide high school students the potential to work with on campus organizations that they may potentially become involved with if they attend MSU Denver in the near future.
Inspiration: My experience in through a Puksta alumni’s project at CU Boulder with Juedon Kebede.
Future Plans for Project: I hope to help more underrepresented students enter college and obtain STEM degrees.
Miranda Johnson
Project: My Puksta Project for the upcoming academic youth is called RECIPROCITY, which stands for Reciprocating Progress in the City. The pilot program will involve CU Denver Mentors collaborating with Denver High School students. The mentors will be providing their students with opportunity, community and a sense of importance. It is through new found confidence that our youth will feel empowered to be young leaders themselves. By experiencing service learning and activities outside of the classroom eventually our youth will have the resources to return home to awaken their communities and address the deep and personal roots of their neighborhoods social inequalities.
Inspiration: My inspiration stems from wishing that I had a personal, one-on-one mentor as I was entering into high school and college. Every kid deserves a mentor that inspires them and acts as a resource of support and trust. Unfortunately, not every child has such a guiding individual in their lives due to circumstances at home, issues in their community or simply not having the available resources. I hope my Puksta Project can change that. Even if the impact is small at first, I believe it has the potential to grow and reach more kids each and every year.
Future Plans for Project: In this civic engagement work, I hope to impact the lives of our youth. I want them to walk away from my program knowing that they are capable of social change.
