A message to our supporters
This annual report is a look back at our work in 2019-2020—a year of great challenge, learning and significant progress.
Our impact
City Year AmeriCorps members serve in systemically under-resourced schools as student success coaches—full-time, near-peer tutors, mentors and role models who are uniquely positioned and trained to support students’ social, emotional and academic growth, while helping to create engaging learning environments. This work to support student and school success helps to advance educational equity and creates more opportunity for all of us.
Our AmeriCorps members provide students with additional resources and relationships that support their learning and success, while strengthening their own professional and leadership skills through their year of service. Additionally, City Year works with partner schools and districts on opportunities to redesign schools so students can experience learning in a more equitable way.
In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 caused an abrupt closure of schools and a shift to distance learning that further exposed long-standing systemic inequities in education. At the same time, outrage and protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans dying at the hands of the police sparked an ongoing racial reckoning. During the past year, many students have experienced interruptions and losses in their lives that have shifted their learning trajectories even as they have also honed skills such as flexibility, resilience and creativity.
City Year’s holistic approach, informed by research and designed to meet local needs, has allowed us to provide students and teachers with critical supports that are essential for learning and development. At the same time, we’ve adapted to pandemic-related demands by helping students sign into virtual classrooms, providing technical assistance to teachers and parents, and prioritizing the mental health and well-being of students, teachers and AmeriCorps members. Learn more about our impact below.
and alumni outcomes
Alumni profile
Whitney Parnell (Washington, D.C. ‘11, ’12), founder & CEO of nonprofit Service Never Sleeps
Service Never Sleeps (SNS) delivers its signature allyship curriculum and skills-based volunteer programs to help individuals and organizations deepen their commitments to advance racial justice as a way of life.
Champion profile
Jennifer Bradbury, executive director of the Taco Bell Foundation
Since 1992, the Taco Bell Foundation has reached more than 4 million students by awarding $110 million+ in scholarships and grants to break down barriers to educational opportunities and careers.
Champion profile
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation fights poverty, disease and inequities to help ensure that more people around the world have opportunities to lead healthy and prosperous lives.
Team sponsor spotlight:
National Grid
City Year’s 3,000 AmeriCorps members have made reuniting school communities a touchstone of their service after the pandemic pushed millions of students into the uncharted territory of virtual learning.
Learn more
Our boards
Our boards bring valuable expertise, leadership and insights to our work both nationally and locally.
AmeriCorps, CNCS and state service commission partners
The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and state service commissions work together to bring AmeriCorps and other national service programs to communities across the country. We are grateful to these state service commissions that secured funding for City Year during the 2019-2020 school year:
Massachusetts Service Alliance
Michigan Community Service Commission
Missouri Community Service Commission
Oklahoma Community Service Commission
OneStar Foundation
PennSERVE
Serve Colorado
Serve DC
Serve Ohio
Serve Washington
United Way Association of South Carolina
Volunteer Florida
Volunteer Louisiana
Volunteer NH
Volunteer Tennessee
