upliftED Celebrates 12 Years
by Daisy C Franklin, MSW, upliftED Program manager
The number 12 represents imagination, effective communication, cooperation, optimism and much more. Today, 12 represents the number of years upliftED has been a collective voice for education access, persistence and completion in Central Florida. That’s right, upliftED turns 12 today! Can you believe how fast it has gone by? But how did we get here? How and why did upliftED start and where are we going?
upliftED’s 12-Year Journey
Get comfortable as we take a quick trip down the Rabbit Hole that is upliftED.
First, why July 14th? Is that when the first upliftED meeting took place? Is that when agreements were signed? The answer is “no” or the better word may be “possibly.” The truth is we do not know the exact date upliftED officially formed. However, the question of when upliftED started is how we got to where we are today, celebrating our 12th anniversary.
We wanted to know our anniversary date and we knew that we started on or shortly after a Florida College Access Network(FCAN) convening in 2013. Our first step was to go to the FCAN website and search to see if we could find anything that would point us to our inception date. To our surprise, we quickly found a couple of articles that were a bright light in our quest. It turns out that the 2013 Florida College Access and Success Summit took place on Friday, June 14, 2013 in Tampa Florida.
This is when representatives from a handful of organizations in Central Florida, including Heart of Florida United Way(HFUW), upliftED’s founding backbone organization and now official “home” to upliftED, sat around a table and discussed the challenges to college access in the region. The group exchanged business cards with the promise to reconnect and look deeper into college access and create solutions to the many challenges students, especially low-income, first-generation students faced.
June 14th is the date that the idea of upliftED formed. Why not celebrate our anniversary on that date? Glad you asked. We later came across an article on the FCAN website from February 2014 in which Ray Larsen, former Senior President for Community Impact at HFUW (now retired), stated that CFCAN was nearly a half-year old and had 19 partner organizations. What does “about a half-year old” really mean? There was no precise date listed. This is when we decided to use one month after the June 14th convening date as our official anniversary date.
I know. I know. It is not exactly when we formed, but it is the best date we could come up with to commemorate our anniversary. We hope you agree and join us in celebrating 12 years of commitment to students and their families in Central Florida.
Let me take a step back. Did you know upliftED was once the Central Florida College Access Network (CFCAN)? That is right. In 2018 we went through our first strategic planning process which resulted in a rebrand to reflect the inclusivity of our work beyond just access to persistence and completion, from high school students to adult learners, and to include the importance of education related to the workforce. Hence, our tagline, “Expanding Education for a Stronger Central Florida Workforce,” or as seen on our logo, “Education for Employment.”
Over the last 12 years, upliftED has become known as a convener, connector, and collaborator. As the # represents, we have had to be imaginative, optimistic, communicate effectively and cooperate well with others over the years.
What started off as an idea with 19 partners is now a strong network of 50+ partner organizations that not only work together towards systemic change that allows for education for all no matter age, background, zip code, economic status, or other “boxes” society places around our students, but also to bring proven strategies for student success to our region.
In the fall, upliftED will officially launch the Education United: Student Success HUB. The HUB will be our direct service “arm” through which we will offer students and their families assistance with affordability (FAFSA completion, budgeting, real cost of college, financial aid options), college access (college fairs & tours, college identification, application and enrollment assistance) and industry exposure (visits to local businesses, career fairs, STEAM events).
Please take a few minutes from your day to celebrate upliftED’s 12-year anniversary. I challenge you to go to our news section of the website and take a look at the highlights over the years starting with the launch of the Going2College Texting platform, followed by the “Destination Graduation: Building a 21st Century Workforce” convening. Later you will learn about the SAIL to 60 convenings, our rebrand, the community data walks known as the “Help ALICE in Wonderland Prosper” series, and much more.
Afterall, if you partner with upliftED, you are upliftED.
Together, let’s continue to upliftED!