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News 12 Staff

118spotlightnj2_2025-01-18-09-40-33

My guests today are with more than bootstraps in Westfield. Audrey Fish is the president and founder. Nelcy Abreu is the current college student leader, neuroscience and behavior major at Rutgers University Newark. Tell me more about the mission and the founding of this organization. So more than bootstraps was founded out of my frustration with the challenges that first generation low income students like Nelcy face on the path to and through higher education. I've been teaching at New Jersey City University for more than 30 years, and I have seen talented students like Nelcy struggling, not because they don't have what it takes to succeed in higher education. But because the climate in higher education has become extremely difficult for students like Nelcy to navigate, um, financial aid hasn't kept pace with the cost of attendance and state funding in New Jersey and across the country has diminished for higher education, so students are caught in the middle and the result is that students who can't afford all of the costs, tuition as well as non-tuition costs work more and more. Students at NJC have always worked outside of school, but when students are forced to work more and more hours outside of school, they don't have the time to take advantage of resources on campus, to find a mentor, even to make friends, and everybody encounters bumps in the road in higher education. And when students like Nelcy encounter those bumps in the road and they don't have anybody to turn to, whether it's a professor or a friend, because the parent hasn't been through that, the parent doesn't know what it means, the student doesn't know what it means, and oftentimes small bumps in the road can really lead a student off the path to success. We have two pictures of Julissa who you said earlier shared her story. Tell us about these photos. Yeah, so this photo we all have the leaders together just taking these amazing pictures with Julissa together and her book oh my goodness, her book is just amazing and it's super duper inspiring and just again being that guide and almost that that blueprint for us, you know, we all are structured with our own uniqueness. But having someone like Julissa who just seeing her success and just the way she's flourishing and just being able to read her book we all just gathered together to speak about why she made the book and different things of that sort and we just take that picture together and even here you can see us just having all these questions for her because her story is just so inspiring and you just wanna apply it to your life almost like copy and paste it.

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118spotlightnj3_2025-01-18-12-38-29

More than Bootstraps is based in Westfield. We are talking about that program today with Audrey Fish and Nelcy Abreu. Let's talk about the growth since you started. Yes, so we started in August of 2020 at the height of COVID. We had 5 college students, all from Passaic, who joined with us to mentor six juniors in high school, and that was the beginning of the program. Nelcy was a sophomore then, um, and she's not, she's, she is in the. picture, um, but the program has grown every year, so Nelcy joined the second year of the program and so Nelcy was a high school fellow so the picture here shows, um, uh, the most recent cohort we've grown to 50 students, so college students and juniors and seniors in high school, all of our. College students are from Passaic and now many of our college student leaders are like Nelcy. They had been fellows who had been mentored by another student in Passaic and now Mel Nelcy as a college student is in turn paying it forward and mentoring her younger peers. What has this program meant to you, Nelcy? This program has meant. Literally almost everything to me by the invaluable resources that are just provided if I were to not have more than bootstraps, I don't know where I would be in my college process right now. More than bootstraps has given me the opportunity to explore interest that I thought I couldn't apply to because I was a first generation low income student, giving me the confidence to apply to these scholarships to apply to these schools and just know that I tried my best and put everything set forward but without more than bootstraps, I think I still would have been in my little shell trying to figure things out on my own, but. Having that mentor hold my hand and guide me take time out of her day to look at my applications to look at my college essays and different things of that sort, it brings me so much comfort that I wanna pay it forward. I wanna help someone who was just like me in my shoes do those college applications together, do everything together, so more than bootstraps has truly helped me in ways that words can't even. Express and now you're there as the student leader to help and that was our model that we wanted was for high school students who had been through the program and knew how important it was to then be able to take on that role of mentor because they best can actually pay it forward and be supportive in the way that they were supported.

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119spotlightnj4_2025-01-19-07-39-37

We are talking with Audrey Fish, who is president and founder of More Than Bootstraps in Westfield. Nelcy Abreu is current college student leader. We have a picture that I want you all to describe to me. It's about your summer kickoff. Tell me all about that. Every summer at the end of the school year as we kick off the summer we welcome our newest high school fellows, so those are rising juniors, and we kick off our summer program for our rising seniors, our rising high school seniors that summer before senior year of high school before they're gonna get into all of the college applications and scholarship applications, we wanna take some time and have them work with students in the program. On preparing themselves and preparing themselves is not just about getting that essay done it's about thinking about where do I see myself and part of what we do is we read a book by Janine Capo Cruset called Make Your Home Among Strange. which is about a first generation Cuban American young woman who goes off to a fictional elite private college and the challenges that she faces there and the opportunities that she sees and we wanna make sure that our students understand. That they have opportunities that they belong that they can go for elite institutions but also that there's not one path to success that staying local, going to community college or the local public college might be what's best for them and their family, but we want to take time to build those. Aspirations and goals as well as do the preparation for the challenges of financial aid and college applications so that's what our students do in the summer before their senior year of high school all of this guided by our college students who are running the program. Nel, how did that book inspire you? That book truly inspired me because as mentioned previously, I never saw myself going anywhere out of state honestly I always had this envision in my mind that I needed to stay in state there was nothing I don't know anything about any other state in terms of their college, so it's the closest thing near nearest to me that I can go to. But while I was reading with the college student leaders and also the other mentees who were in the same shoes as me, I realized that. There is more than just New Jersey for me there is more opportunities than just New Jersey and of course growing up in New Jersey sometimes it's easy to think that there's only just so much here, but when you're reading that book, it really puts you in that perspective that there is more there's more to apply to and there's nothing to lose by applying there's nothing to lose by just putting yourself out there.

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119spotlightnj5_2025-01-19-09-28-04

We are looking at a video showing a FAFSA presentation with more than bootstraps in Westfield. Go ahead and tell us all about it, Nelcy. Yes, of course. So in this video here we see Kalma and Melissa doing an amazing job just giving a FAFSA presentation that more than Bootstraps prepares beforehand to help students who are currently rising seniors or seniors as of right. Now do the FASFA, and many times as a first generation low income student when it comes to hearing about FASFA and having those difficult family conversations it's hard to really navigate what are my next steps. I know I wanna go to college and I know I need to apply to something called FASFA, but what do I do from there, you know, but with more than bootstraps having that amazing presentation giving. Details and steps by steps of what to do, the requirements and necessities that you need and your families need to apply to the FASFA together really help students get the opportunity to fill it out to the best of your ability. So in that video there, it's just showing Kalma and Melissa doing such an amazing job speaking to seniors at the Academy for Science and Engineering and helping them fill out the FASFA. And you are looking at Audrey Fish, who is president and founder of More Than Bootstraps in Westfield. Nelcy Abreu is the current college student leader. Tell us about your other activities. So, um, the FAFSA work is something that came about as a result of an award made by the federal government because of the FAFSA difficulties last year with the new better FAFSA roll out and that um. Increase the difficulties that students, especially from first generation low income backgrounds faced in completing the FAFSA, and it was a great opportunity for our students to bring the work that they already do in supporting each other to the broader Passaic community so there's nothing like when Kalma and Melissa who've been through this who are. From the community who can speak the languages and relate to the families as well as the students are sharing the information with the broader Passaic community so that's an example of where our students in more than bootstraps can bring their knowledge and expertise, their skills to the broader community, but much of our work is just mentoring, so, um, Nelsy. As a college student leader is mentoring her two juniors in high school. She will mentor them for 2 years. They work through tasks that are related to building their ambitions and goals, um, knowledge of college and financial aid, and the third really important kind of bucket of tasks that our students work on together is communication with families. Audrey says they'd love to take their program model nationwide.

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119spotlightnj6_2025-01-19-13-09-23

We are back with Audrey Fish, president and founder of More Than Bootstraps in Westfield. Nelcy Abreu is current college student leader. Graduation is always a big time. Tell us about that for you all. Yeah, so graduation is such a significant milestone for our students and their families. So all of our students are first generation, which means none of their families have completed a 4 year higher education in the United States, but for many our students are the first in their families to graduate from high school even so it's a really wonderful celebration and. You can see we celebrate our graduation at Passaic County Community College. They're a wonderful partner for us. They host our celebration and we. We try to make our graduation family friendly because we know that when Nelcy is successful it means that her younger siblings are watching her cousins are watching so when one student is succeeding and we're celebrating that success we know that that can have an impact on everybody in that extended family so it's it's just a wonderful celebration of all of the hard work that our students have put in to get to this spot. And how do you feel having walked in those shoes? It's really Oh an amazing opportunity to be the first in my family to really lead the line of my brother and my little sister to get there to where they need to be. It almost feels like passing down the torch, you know, and doing what. Everything that you did that you could have done and everything that you put in in your heart to do what you can do now it's just it's just amazing and it feels just really inspiring. And what plans do you have for more than bootstraps? So we are in our 5th year of working in Passaic. All of our students are from Passaic or in the Passaic. High schools and we know that our model at this point is successful. We have had a 100% college retention rate. All of our college students have stayed in college and at this point we have had 8 college students graduate within 4 years. We expect another 8 to graduate with. In 4 years, so we know we can keep them on track and we have had 80% of our students matriculate from the program into higher education. So again we feel like we have the secret sauce. What we do a little bit different from other programs is we use our resources directly for students. More than bootstraps is funded by the PSEG Foundation Neighborhood Partners program.

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News 12’s Della Crews discussed the group’s mission with founder Audrey Fisch and college student leader Nelsie Abreu.

Spotlight New Jersey: More Than Bootstraps in Westfield

News 12’s Della Crews discussed the group’s mission with founder Audrey Fisch and college student leader Nelsie Abreu.

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