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Living in the projects and coming from a single-parent household, Sola Perez didn’t expect to go to college. Then she joined Scholar Athletes. The non-profit, founded by Suffolk CEO John Fish in 2009, is aimed at raising academic outcomes through athletics for high school participants across the Commonwealth.

Scholar Athletes has touched the lives of more than 35,000 young people, known as Zone members, over the last decade, boosting the graduation and college acceptance rates of its members to about 95%.

Many former Zone members credit the program’s encouragement, tutoring, and guidance with setting them up for success in college admissions and beyond. “They were the first people to actually sit us down and say, ‘Hey, you can do it. You can achieve your goals. You can go to college,’” says Yusuf Liban, a class of 2015 alumnus.  “They really believed in us before we even believed in ourselves.”

Building off its reputation for success, Scholar Athletes continues to grow. In 2009, 300 students and 12 volunteers participated. By 2019, 5,000 students and 175 volunteers counted themselves as members of the program.

“[I saw] what I can become,” Liban says. “Now, I don’t strive for anything less than that because I know I can be great.”