IMPACT STORIES

Someday, Donna Mitchell might make a film about her life: the homeschooled Des Moines student who went on to publish novels and produce independent films. It will be a long road, but Donna is up for it. She has already cleared the first hurdle: earning her high school equivalency diploma (HSED) through the Bridges to Success program.

Three-hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Most of them never get seen, much less transform the atmosphere of an entire school. But when McCombs seventh-grader Zoey Hannan (far left) watched a video of a mentally challenged student being lured to a party and tormented, she did something many of her peers would never consider. She looked outside herself—a popular 13-year-old with high self-esteem—and realized that her own actions could help others.

There are a lot of things a six-year-old can do with a bag of rocks. Build a castle. Lay out an imaginary battle. Roll them around like cars. Learn to read. That last one is what Bill, a kindergartner at Norwood Elementary in Des Moines, did with the help of his mentor Larry Collins.

Coming as a refugee to Iowa from her homeland torn apart by civil war, Rebecca faced many barriers. No relatives, no job, not even the ability to speak or read English. Rebecca turned to the HOPE Initiative, and now has a job, a driver's license, is learning to read and write English, and she knows her kids can have the future she always hoped for.

Claudia felt like an outcast in school—a minority that nobody cared about. Failing classes and withdrawing from society, she was on a terrible path. But thanks to the Wyld Girls program, funded by United Way's ELI she learned that she could create her own path and help herself and other young women succeed. Claudia went on to college, and after graduate school hopes to work as a high school counselor to help teens find their own paths to success.