School of Education Alum Keeping the American Dream Alive for
Underserved OC Youth During the Pandemic

A few months ago, it was business as usual for School of Education alumna Mary Cappellini, who serves as board chair of the Costa Mesa-based nonprofit, Save Our Youth, or SOY.

In March, however, the program - which serves 400 underserved junior high through high school youth annually with afterschool tutoring, health and fitness classes, arts and music classes, leadership and self-empowerment classes, and a college readiness program featuring college tours - was forced to move its programming online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So much has been up in the air and the students haven’t been able to come in to interact with our tutors and mentors,” Cappellini said. “For many of our students, their parents have lost both jobs, [for many] internet is really weak or disconnected, or they cannot afford the internet.”

Despite this, SOY board members and staff are working tirelessly to make sure students receive services for SOY’s academic program, which provides each participating high school senior a scholarship to college. “[I have been] personally calling students asking them if they have been getting emails and applying for scholarships,” Cappellini said.

Mary Cappellini, left, with Jesscia Lopez, UCI Engineering major and SOY Scholar.

Cappellini has also been working with the board to provide emergency grants for alumni of the SOY program. The grants are assisting SOY alumni currently attending college - many of whom have younger siblings currently enrolled in the program - with bills and other necessities. 

“We realized we have 100 SOY students right now that are in college and are at every UC, all [Cal State Universities], and community colleges, and they have had to go home and are struggling.”

There are seven SOY alumni attending UCI, including Engineering major Jessica Lopez, pictured above. 

In addition to financial support, SOY continues to serve the students remotely, providing several virtual services with ties to UCI.

“We held online UC panels before May 1 when seniors had to decide where they were going to go to college," Cappellini said. "We put together some student panels and students that got accepted to UC schools got to sit in with SOY alumni at those universities and ask them some questions. [We] even had some professors sit in and give students some advice.”

SOY has also partnered with UCI's Circle K, Hermanos Unidos, the Latino Student Business Association, and Beyond All Means (BAM), a UCI student-run group who is providing online tutoring and hosting a panel called "Let’s Talk About College." SOY had eight student interns from the UCI School of Social Ecology prior to the pandemic.

Cappellini received her teaching credential and bachelor’s degree in History and Comparative Literature from UCI. Today, in addition to her role with SOY, she is a consultant to educators around the country, specializing in education for English Language Learners. She has written or adapted more than 300 children’s books in Spanish and English and has published a book for teachers titled Balancing Reading and Language Learning: A Resource for Teaching English Language Learners, K-5. 

She currently supervises student teachers in the School of Education’s Masters of Arts in Teaching program, and has observed students in their virtual classroom.

SOY Scholars on a tour of UCI campus

“The student teachers have learned how to adapt really quickly and really well to what they may be encountering in the fall.”

She is proud that her work with some of the student teachers is coming full circle to SOY.

“One of the student teachers I am supervising was actually a tutor at one of the junior highs [in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District] and some of those kids are now in the high school SOY program.”

Cappellini is also encouraged by the fact that roughly six students in the current SOY cohort want to be teachers.  
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“I encourage students to give back to their community and be a great teacher - we need a lot more teachers that can go back and teach in the communities that they came from. I know UCI is trying to be impactful in that way.”