9 Shared Prosperity GRANTMAKING Changing young lives for the better Some college students define success as a high-paying job. Then there are others, like Bentley University junior Peterson Philippe, who want to give back. “I grew up in a low-income household, and I felt like we didn’t have the same access to information that other people had, and that’s why we fell behind,” says Peterson, the son of a Haitian mother who migrated to Cambridge. “I feel once we learn to use the tools in the market, it will propel us to greater heights.” Peterson is one of the thousands of young people in the city who have participated in an innovative program called Work Force, created by the Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA) more than 30 years ago. “We felt that we had a better chance of reaching the greater vision of our work if we started with youth,” says John Lindamood, director of Cambridge Housing Author- ity Resident Services. “The programs are built to help our young people reach their potential and break the cycle of inter-generational poverty.” The Cambridge Housing Authority houses about 7,000 families in the city and serves nearly 400 young people each year. Work Force begins in 8th grade and continues through high school with life skills and college preparatory classes, financial aid and college savings programs, mentoring, and job and internship placement. The program was honored in 1990 by the Ford Foun- dation/Harvard Kennedy School of Government and is a national model. A recent study of the Cambridge graduating class of 2016 revealed that 76 percent of Work Force students completed their sophomore year of college and plan to graduate in four years. The Cambridge Community Foundation has supported the Work Force program since 1991, awarding more than $290,000 in grants, including $15,000 in 2018. Source: CHA Work Force website CAMBRIDGE HOUSING AUTHORITY WORK FORCE Work Force program graduate Peterson Philippe finds meaning in helping to strengthen the financial foundations of his community. The 20-year-old finance and ethics major from Cambridge hopes to teach financial literacy to low-income families so they can build wealth and self-sufficiency in a competitive economy. Photo by Jeffrey Blackwell For Jill Jacobs and Carl Whittaker, the stewards of the Herb and Maxine Jacobs Foundation, inequity is their motivator. “It seems completely unfair that a child can be born into an affluent family, go to school, get married, have kids, and think about Ivy League schools for their children, while a child of exactly the same ability who is born into an immigrant or diverse family has unbelievably low odds of getting the same opportunities,” says Carl. In an innovation hub like Cambridge, this couple asked: why shouldn’t local kids, regardless of income or race, have access to rewarding 21st-century careers? They contributed $25,000 in 2018 to CCF to help make that happen. “During this time of such prosperity in Cambridge, why not divert some resources to have more boats get lifted with a rising tide?” says Carl. PHILANTHROPY Helping kids get from A to B Nearly 95% enrolled in college or a technical program after completing the CHA Work Force program