Last July, when senior Rachel Veneziano’s adviser called to inform her she was accepted into Students Rising Above, she was instantly so overcome with hopeful excitement that she spent the rest of the day looking at colleges that she previously thought she would not have a chance of attending. “It was the moment that I knew that I would always have some sort of stability in the years to come and that I had a chance to succeed,” says Veneziano.
Students Rising Above (SRA), an academic program serving the nine counties in the Bay Area, provides resources and opportunities to students who are experiencing “tremendous hardships.” With the primary goal of supporting students, SRA helps students navigate the college application process and provides students financial aid in addition to access to advisers and mentors, career development workshops, and opportunities to speak to college representatives. Students who join SRA are typically of low-income backgrounds and face personal obstacles such as having disabled parents or living in dangerous neighborhoods. Currently, four Aragon seniors are a part of the program.
Senior Olivia Di Santo decided to join because math and computer science teacher Lisa Kossiver, a student adviser for SRA, had encouraged her and her sister to apply for the program. Di Santo, who faces personal adversity, says, “Alcohol addictions and substance abuse have torn my family apart and caused deaths to the people closest to me, such as my father during my freshman year. Other family members have continued the cycle of addiction, but since I have seen the deterioration of my family bond from alcohol and drug abuse, I aspire to break the cycle.”
After learning about other students who joined the program, senior Rachel Veneziano decided to apply because of her challenging home life: “One important part of SRA is also coming to realize that your potential is different than whatever you’re coming from, and you can overcome it.”
Since 2004, Kossiver has been a student adviser for SRA and also serves as the Selection Outreach Committee Chair for SRA. As the chair, Kossiver organizes the selection process and outreach for juniors from all across the Bay Area. Kossiver says, “We have the secret sauce, and I do think it’s the advising piece. That experience gives them someone to lean on. I have students right now that I consider my children. I think that we support the kids through every step of the college process, even more so than a college counselor does here. We definitely hold their hand through everything.”
During the application process, SRA helps students fill out financial aid forms. However, SRA’s support does not only concern college. Veneziano says, “They make a lot of things possible that you wouldn’t think of: they pay for a laptop, books, and even a place ticket back and forth from school. It opens a lot of doors to people that are low-income or first generation students wouldn’t otherwise have access to.”
Beyond financial help, the program also provides students emotional support and aid in seeking job opportunities. When students are in college, their mentors continue to look after them, sending care packages, for instance. “With my mentor, it’s been a really good experience of having someone that’s around and closer to my age. It’s kind of like a parent I get to go out and go hiking with them or go cooking with them. These are things that I have always wanted to do,” says Veneziano. “They keep your story out of it, so it’s not like you go there and talk about your personal life. They try and make it this fun thing that takes your mind off.”
SRA’s influence goes beyond their students. “I think because of what Aragon looks like on the outside, we don’t always think about on the inside that there are people that are struggling,” says Kossiver. “This year we have four young women who all have pretty intense stories. I don’t necessarily think we have to create consciousness, but we have to also make sure people know that there are kids that have different circumstances. We all may not look the same; we also don’t live the same lives.”
Both Veneziano and Di Santo are beating the odds despite the challenges in their paths.“In the future, I hope to be a biomedical engineer. I aspire to be part of the 3-D printing process of prosthetics to give disabled people the opportunity to do something that they never imagined possible and to enhance the mobility of non-disabled people,” says Di Santo.
Veneziano plans to major in international environmental policy at Middlebury College this coming fall. She reflects, “It was an amazing experience to meet my mentors for the first time, since I realized that even though they were people that I hardly knew yet, they were so invested in my happiness and success. Before I was in the program, I had very few people that I felt comfortable talking with about my family. Now I have my mentors, adviser, and other SRA students that understand what I’m going through, and [they] are always happy to listen.”
