Who Are We?
The Promise We Share (PWS) is a 501-(c)(3) tax-exempt coalition of passionate students who utilize community education and interactive resources to help pre-existing organizations better meet the needs of the populations they serve.
Join Our Programs
Educational Enrichment
Our Educational Enrichment Committee supports underserved academic and recreation programs through diverse civic learning for youth in order to address the educational gaps that underlie the poverty cycle.
Community Health
Our Community Health Committee collaborates with local social service sites to offer inclusive educational resources, trainings, and seminars to support the physical, financial, and social-emotional health of all people.
Community Empowerment
Our Community Empowerment Committee works closely with public leaders and organizations to curate events, classes, and leadership opportunities that promote joy, advocacy, and justice.
Community-Focused Programs as a Vehicle for Social Change
Through extensive research, conferences, and volunteering, the students leading PWS are mastering the skill of creating immersive programming that is engaging, meaningful, and helpful for participants. In a structured, evidence-based critique of the status quo, PWS conceptualizes ways to form powerful partnerships and equip wonderful community leaders with new curriculum and models to ensure that we have high-quality systems in place to comprehensively support vulnerable families.
We are uniquely situated to have a meaningful impact:
The Promise We Share takes a need-based approach to connecting with community partners and taking initiative where we can, how we can. Through a partnership-focused paradigm, we bring collaboration to the nonprofit sector.
Model #1: We conduct our own research to identify gaps in community services and then form a local partnership to address this systemic fracture. In one of our first projects, we found that financial and health resources for homeless families were not suited for homeless individuals with disabilities, and this was leading to chronic poverty in this subpopulation. In response, we connected with a homeless shelter in New Rochelle, Westchester, and we created a 4-week personal health and fitness program tailored towards adults with minor developmental disabilities. We trained their staff to administer the course, and we use surveys to regularly assess the efficacy of the program and make adjustments accordingly.
Model #2: Organizations reach out to us because they want to improve a specific outcome, and we work together to brainstorm programs that PWS could design for them to help them expand and advance. For example, a local youth bureau reached out to us about wanting to build an enriching teen program, so we created a 12-week seminar that mobilized students through art, engineering, and public speaking as well as connected them to internship opportunities in fields that they were interested in.
We typically form ongoing partnerships with organizations we work with and continue to create resources for them as needed. We consult with doctors, psychologists, lawyers, and educators when revising all of our programs to ensure it is as accessible and accurate as possible for the target population.
Previous Projects:
We partnered with a transitional housing site to provide a 7-week discussion-based mental health seminar for incarcerated women.
We partnered with a local summer camp for low-income families to provide a free program on overcoming stereotypes and reconstructing gender roles in our society.
We partnered with a women’s shelter to provide financial literacy classes and community-building activities.
We partnered with a local Congressman to host a student-led roundtable at a high school on mental health policy for youth.
We partnered with an advocacy organization to create an online platform to ensure that all students have equitable access to volunteer opportunities.
A Dynamic Approach
Our mission is intentionally broad. We seek to be a fluid coalition that can adapt to respond to evolving community needs. We are a team of young change-makers who believe in the efficacy of powerful experiences, and we want to channel our love of design thinking and community building in as many ways as possible to maximize our impact; we take on a wide range of projects, and we make specific use of legal, medical, and educational experts in our network to provide tailored support for particular initiatives. Our multidimensional principles also extend to the community we build within our organization. We strive to create a nurturing environment for students to find their strengths and initiate projects that align with their passions.