Make your vision a reality!

Like most other nonprofits, CO-OP is the realization of a dream.  What started as a simple idea to do good work, has now grown into a multi-faceted organization that is set to make great strides in the next few years.  So far, we have helped hundreds of kids attend college and have provided their families with case-management and referral services.

It all started over a series of several dinners.  Where the three of us – myself, DeShawn, and Zolita – decide we wanted to start an agency that would help us do an even better job helping kids go to college.  Our primary purpose at that time was to stop the perpetuation of what we dubbed the “Only the Lonely Club.”  In this instance, it would be graduates of programs that would successfully assist a first-generation student in completing college.  But the support would typically stop there, resulting in that person presumably being the only one in their family to break the cycle of poverty.

Having been the only ones in our family, at that time, to complete college, we each felt an enormous amount of pressure.  In many ways, you become the default “go-to” person for your family.  While  you do your best to be supportive and to provide assistance in any way you can, it is often a lonely “club” to be in and you can find yourself struggling to fill shoes that are way too big.

Another interesting piece of our history is that we decided on the acronym, CO-OP, before we came up with a company name.  You can thank DeShawn for that.  I insisted that we select a name that would be able to grow just as the agency would, and has.

So that’s it in a nutshell – how the vision for CO-OP was born.  Of course we have expanded our vision over the years.  But, ultimately, our original goal still stands.  We are proud to serve as a source of support not only for our students, but for their families and neighbors as well!