Partner profile

Grads of Life—a national initiative that catalyzes market demand for opportunity youth—connects employers with programs that prepare young adults and equip them to be valuable employees from day one. Their Talent Pipeline Model includes outreach and assessment, skill development, work-based experience, hiring and retention. It’s a win-win—young adults receive the mentoring they need for workplace success, while employers build a talent pipeline that suits their hiring needs.

Think back to your elementary school days: Many of us were frequently asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Homelessness does not discriminate. Individuals who make up our region’s population come from a diverse background of age, race, circumstances and experiences. Some are veterans, others are under 18. Some have no family in the area, others navigate housing insecurity as a household. For some, there is addiction and disability, but one thing remains certain for all: they are fighting for survival on the streets of San Diego.

Entering the basement of the Chula Vista Public Library’s Civic Center branch is like discovering an educational Atlantis. In this vibrant and imaginative space, students are exploring their strengths and interests through a lens of technology, engineering and science. The Innovation Station is a more than a makerspace, it’s an experience of self-discovery and intergenerational learning—which happens to be molding San Diego’s next generation of skilled workers.

Have you ever thought it’d be cool to chart your career path, learn about new occupations based on your interests, figure out how to land your dream job or make a career jump? Well, there’s an app for that.

Excellence and innovation make up the tagline of the Vista Unified School District. With all the activities happening at Vista, it isn’t hard to see why these words are merited. With 29 schools serving nearly 22,000 students from preschool to 12^th grade, Vista Unified is one of San Diego County’s largest educational agencies.

To hear Sterling Tran tell it, City Heights Coffee House (CHCH) was in the cards for her since childhood. A social enterprise nonprofit that started in an alley off El Cajon Boulevard in 2016, the coffee house recently moved to its new brick and mortar home at 4465 University Avenue. Its mission is to help people become self-sufficient and to be the “central, multicultural gathering hub for our City Heights community.”

Candace Vanderhoff spent over a decade founding businesses that aim to improve the environment. Vanderhoff previously had a greywater company prior to her current enterprise, Kaping, Inc., which makes the SoloBee, a pesticide-free nesting place for solitary native bees—the “unstung hero.”

The AjA Project is a nonprofit organization headquartered in San Diego. Their mission: transform youth and communities through artistic expression. Since its founding, the AjA Project has been a highly organized, resourceful and effective arts education nonprofit that uses participatory

“Urban Beats has taught me to love myself and never give up on seemingly unobtainable dreams. Here I feel safe and free to think big and change the outlook and stigma of mental illness,” says Autumn, a young adult who’s participated in an innovative artistic expression program offered by Urban Beats. The program serves transitional age youth (TAY)–young adults between the ages of 16 and 25 who are at risk of experiencing a mental health challenge.