by Raquel Donoso, Director, Mission Promise Neighborhood There was some great news on December 10th, as President Obama added his signature to the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA), now officially the law of the land. ESSA is a reauthorization of the five-decades-old Early and Secondary Education (ESEA) Act of 1965. The President had […]

Imagine being new to this country … as an 11-year-old.  You need to learn the language. You need the learn the culture. You need to just learn, period. To make this process interactive and fun, Streetside Stories and classroom teachers have partnered up to get creative. On Tuesday at Everett Middle School, 6th-graders who are newcomers to […]

While most low-income Mission families know the need for being connected, they often don’t know how to get started. This is especially true of immigrants—newcomers to this country with myriad tech options from which to choose. That’s why the goal of today’s sixth “Get Connected!” event, held at MEDA’s Plaza Adelante, was to help parents […]

Whether you call it a resume or a CV, most jobseekers have learned over time the power of having a robust LinkedIn profile to supplement, or even supplant, that piece of paper routinely sent to a job recruiter or handed in at the start of an interview. By robust, that means having plenty of connections, […]

Just five weeks shy of her thirteenth birthday when she headed to D.C. to live in the White House, Chelsea Clinton knows plenty about public life. That early experience was the impetus for her recently released first book, “It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going,” a primer for adolescents looking to become […]

After just five years, MEDA, the lead agency of the Mission Promise Neighborhood (MPN), now runs the largest free tax preparation program in San Francisco. While things are super busy during the first part of the year, with everyone trying to meet the April 15th filing deadline, there are still plenty of clients coming through […]

“Today is a special day because this is the first step you are taking with your children as they begin a new school year,” enthusiastically stated Director, Mission Promise Neighborhood Raquel Donoso, as she welcomed a crowd of over 200 who packed the Salvation Army Mission Community Center on an abnormally hot August morning this […]

“I came from Mexico to this country as a teenager with my parents and 13 brothers and sisters. We lived in a labor camp and worked long hours in the fields of the Salinas Valley. After learning English, I was fortunate to get an internship with a local TV station. Thus began a rapidly advancing […]

“The price of light is less than the cost of darkness.” –Arthur C. Nielsen, market researcher and founder of ACNielsen The need and challenge Michelle Reiss-Top (photo, top right) definitely understands the aforementioned quote about data. MEDA’s technology and data systems manager was tasked with implementing and optimizing Salesforce internally–a Herculean task by itself. Imagine […]

“I need to understand technology so that I can help my child succeed in school,” explained Mission resident Miriam, who came with her eight-year-old daughter to a free Mission Promise Neighborhood technology event at MEDA’s Plaza Adelante today (more pictures). Miriam was just one of many Mission residents who dropped by to take digital literacy classes taught by […]