Impact Spotlight: College AIM

CollegeAIM Founder and ED, Sam Aleinikoff with a CollegeAIM student.

As part of our impact spotlight series, we’ll be highlighting organizations #DoinTheWork throughout Atlanta who have adjusted their work to accommodate the communities they serve during COVID-19. 

This week, we spoke with Sam Aleinikoff, Founder and ED of CollegeAIM.

Organization Name: College AIM

Leadership: Executive Director Sam Aleinikoff

Industry: Education

Social Media Handle: @CollegeAIM- Facebook/Twitter, and @CollegeAIMATL on Instagram

What type of work does your organization do that you are most proud of? What inspires you to continue to show up for this work?

I'm proud of the way that we really get to know students and families. Our staff builds real, authentic relationships, and cares so deeply about each of our students. Through those relationships we build trust, and only through that trust can we thoughtfully guide our students. It's those same relationships and our incredible students who inspire me to keep pushing with College AIM -- it's Andre' and Chari and Jennifer and Alicia and Michelle and Náni and Sarah and Justus and Thang. They are amazing, and we are so lucky that they let us in to be a piece of their journeys.

What is one of your organization’s biggest accomplishments?

This year we have 194 high school seniors who will complete our high school program, and we have more than 1,000 students who we're currently supporting in high school and college. That feels like a really significant accomplishment to me. We are truly invested in each individual student and work on such a personalized level, so when you look up and there are more than 1,000 talented, thoughtful, driven, creative, wonderful young people who have welcomed us into their stories and look to us for support, that feels really big and amazing. 

How has your organization's operations or programming shifted during this time? Feel free to provide an example that sticks out to you. 

Pivot is the new buzzword, but it's real. With schools closed, students coming home from college and our families in really tough situations, we've had to pivot everything. Immediately, College AIM launched an emergency fund to help our students and families who had critical basic needs and academic needs going unmet. At the same time we moved all of our programming virtual and are doing more to engage parents and family members -- so counseling is now via phone, email, text, FaceTime, Google Hangout, Zoom and more. We also realized how much our college students were losing with their campuses shut down. Office hours were cut or deprioritized, career centers were difficult to access, and our college students needed more support than ever. So, we rallied a number of our supporters to serve as virtual tutors and career coaches in their fields of expertise, and now they've put in a ton of hours to make sure our college students stay on track.

This week we held a virtual Signing Day on Instagram Live, and dozens of students logged on to celebrate with us. We gave out a couple of small scholarships, had students e-sign our Signing Day banner and produced a video announcing where they're going and wishing them luck. It's been a strange time, but our goal is to ensure that our students remain on the wonderful paths they've set for themselves. Thus far, we feel like we're doing that.

How has your audience/community been impacted by this shift? Have you noticed anything interesting or surprising?

Our community has been hit hard. Folks have lost jobs, health insurance, access to food and medicine. They've been scared of losing their homes and of falling way behind on bills. It has been particularly tough on our high school and college seniors, in part because they've worked so hard for the festivities around graduation and they're missing those special moments, but also because times of transition are when we need the most guidance and support. They're being asked to make the huge leap, many as the first in their family to go to college or to graduate from college, and they're having to do it, to some extent, on their own. College AIM has tried to be really mindful of that, and we've focused on work on supporting those students at these critical junctures. They've been receptive, appreciative and have jumped in, and we can't wait to see the leaps forward our students take.

What resources or support does your organization or your community need? How can people best support your work?

Right now, College AIM is raising funds so that we can continue to support our graduating high school seniors virtually this summer as they matriculate to college. On #GivingTuesdayNow, we raised enough money to provide the necessary support for more about half of those students, and now we're pushing to raise funds for the other half.

Studies show that as many as 40% of students who intend to go to college "melt" over the summer before enrollment — meaning that something trips them up and they never make it to campus. The numbers are particularly stark for first-generation and low-income students. We know that is the most critical juncture for our students, and it's made even more challenging this year because there's so much uncertainty about what college will be next year. Our students continue to have big college-going aspirations, but they're out of school with no real support when they need to complete the final steps to enroll, and that's where College AIM comes in.

Our staff remains in constant communication with our graduating seniors over summer. We continue supporting students individually, helping them request final transcripts, complete cumbersome paperwork, analyze and finalize financial aid awards, submit enrollment deposits, make housing selections and so much more, ensuring that our students can matriculate to college in the fall. Each graduating senior also completes College AIM’s College 101 sessions over the summer, which prepare students to succeed once they’re actually on campus. During College 101, students will explore academic, financial and social resources on campus, receive a primer on mental health for college students, get introduced to college writing expectations, and meet with our Collegians to get advice on the transition.

Any donations that people can make to support our work this summer would be an incredible boost for our organization, and more importantly for our students!

Want to learn more about College AIM or support their work? Visit them at www.collegeaim.org and follow them @CollegeAIM on Facebook and Twitter, and @CollegeAIMATL on Instagram.