Carolina Youth Coalition Brings Opportunity to Charlotte Teens

Sept. 12, 2024

Since 2018, the Carolina Youth Coalition (CYC) has helped nurture and propel high-achieving, under-resourced students to and through college. Cofounded by Aaron Randolph, executive director, and Kathryn Kissam, board chairwoman, the organization has grown from a single employee and no students to a team of 10 employees working with more than 300 students from eighth grade through college graduation. 

This important community organization exists thanks to strong support from the Albemarle Foundation, which encouraged and funded efforts to improve economic mobility in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area and beyond. 

The CYC’s roots began in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Albemarle Corporation was previously headquartered. Albemarle moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2016. At that time, the community was working to rectify results from a 2014 report known as the Chetty study, which ranked Charlotte 50th out of 50 for economic mobility in large United States cities. 

The Albemarle Foundation began looking for ways to support economic mobility efforts in its new home through local nonprofit organization partnerships. It saw a unique opportunity to help introduce a new organization to the community. 

Aaron Randolph had been working for the Baton Rouge Youth Coalition (BRYC) before relocating to Charlotte in 2017. After conducting a needs assessment to determine whether a new area nonprofit organization would be impactful and sustainable for the long term, Randolph received seed funding from the Albemarle Foundation to create the CYC. Soon after, the Foundation made an additional, multi-year funding commitment. 

“The importance of the seed funding and then that second commitment really allowed us to scale the organization and our impact, particularly in the early years,” says Randolph. “When we first got the seed funding, I was the only employee. I wasn’t working with any students. Years later, we have grown to a staff of 10, and we're working with just over 300 students. That funding helped us get a building, transportation and technology to really invest in the infrastructure of the organization.” 

Randolph says Albemarle’s financial support made it easier to connect with potential donors in the community because it showed that a values-based corporation supported the CYC. “All together we're working with about 10 times the number of students than we did just six years ago. A lot of that impact we definitely attribute to the investment from Albemarle,” says Randolph. 

Since 2018, the CYC has grown in both scope and scale. The organization originally supported high school juniors and seniors with college prep. Then it added programming to support eighth grade students and high school freshmen and sophomores. It also offers ongoing support after high school graduation to help students succeed in college. 

In 2023, the CYC celebrated its first graduating cohort of college fellows. The students earned degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wake Forest University, North Carolina A&T State University, Georgia Institute of Technology and others. 

In other good news, Charlotte overall has made strides in mobility. In its recent follow-up report, Opportunity Insights and Raj Chetty found the city had improved to 38^th out of 50, the third-largest gain among cities in the report. 

In addition to its financial investment, Albemarle provides CYC students face-to-face access to our company’s leadership. Recently, CYC students came to our headquarters and prepared “Semester Starter Kits” with senior leaders from Albemarle’s energy storage team. The kits were packed with items that college students will need for their dorm rooms, allowing students to prioritize academic success. 

“Part of encouraging that belief in themselves a lot of times means exposing them to people and environments they otherwise would not have been,” says Randolph. “Then you tie that in with getting to speak one-on-one with leaders from a Fortune 500 company and getting a chance to network with them. That means a lot for their soft skill development.” 

“Over time, they start to get comfortable. So, the next time they step into a [boardroom], they'll feel like, ‘Okay. I’m supposed to be here. I’ve been here before.’”