Sarah never planned to attend Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano. Today, she is helping lead it.
As College Access Program Manager, Sarah spends her days preparing students and Teaching Fellows for experiences that may change their lives–just like Breakthrough changed hers.
As a sixth grader, she learned about the program after applications had already closed. She wasn’t interested in spending her summer in what she assumed was just summer school. But a teacher encouraged her to apply, and her mother reached out to the program’s director anyway. Reluctantly, Sarah showed up.
“It was transformative in the first five minutes,” she remembers.
What Sarah found at Breakthrough wasn’t just another summer school program. In her fellow Breakthrough students, she found lifelong friends. In her Teaching Fellows, she found college students who came from backgrounds similar to hers, and who talked openly about college, careers, and possibilities she hadn’t known existed.
“I remember taking notes on everything they shared,” she said. “College dorms, programs, opportunities. It immediately opened my eyes to what was possible.”
For the first time, attending college felt like an attainable future for Sarah. As she navigated the challenges of high school and then the uncertainty that comes with being a first generation college student, Breakthrough became a constant in her life. There was someone at Breakthrough she could call.
That support helped Sarah pursue opportunities she hadn’t always imagined for herself. With encouragement from Breakthrough staff, she enrolled in college, participated in programs for first-generation students, earned her undergraduate degree at University of San Francisco, and later completed a master’s degree in public policy at University of California, Irvine.
“If they believed I could do it, then maybe I could.”
Today, Sarah has experienced Breakthrough from nearly every angle: student, volunteer, summer staff, and now full-time staff. . As Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano celebrates its 20th summer, she is helping build the same kind of community that first welcomed her as a sixth grader. .
“The spirit of Breakthrough has always felt like home,” she said.
That feeling is something she hears from students and alumni again and again. For Sarah, this is Breakthrough’s lasting impact. She describes it as a place where young people feel welcomed, accepted, supported, and known. It’s the place where she found a community that believed in her, and brought her back to help the next generation find that same sense of belonging.