The following is a guest post written by Summer Search Boston alumnus Ronald Germán. Ronald is currently a Sales Consultant at State Street Corporation, the development chair of the Boston Alumni Board, and recently served as co-chair of the 2018 Boston Leadership Dinner.
Summer Search’s mission is to expand educational access and opportunity for all. We like to say, “It’s not about charity. It’s about equity.”
As an alumnus of our Boston program, I can tell you firsthand my life and career have benefitted greatly from my time with Summer Search — from the opportunities, to the connections, to the continuous support and encouragement.
Ronald Germán (second from the right), with friends and Summer Search Boston supporters.
This kind of life-changing impact wouldn’t be possible without partners like Liberty Mutual Insurance and State Street Corporation who have been longstanding supporters of Summer Search Boston, investing in young people like me.
That’s why I was proud to serve as a co-chair of Boston’s 2018 Leadership Dinner in March, alongside fellow alumnus and co-chair Chris Fitzgerald, as well as other students, alumni, and members of our Summer Search community who shared their stories at the event.
This year’s dinner honored two local leaders working to ensure equity in the Greater Boston area and beyond: Dawn Frazier-Bohnert, Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Liberty Mutual, and Paul Francisco, Chief Diversity Officer and Head of Workforce Development Programs at State Street.
From left to right: Paul Francisco, Dawn Frazier-Bohnert, and Summer Search Boston Executive Director Hermese Velasquez.
“There is something you can do to make the world better,” Dawn Frazier-Bohnert explained in her honoree video from the evening on why her job is more than just a job to her. “You can have an impact on someone directly and help them see the world differently… and not only them. It’s a ripple effect — you impact them, their family, their community.”
Paul Francisco, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with at State Street, offered a related perspective in his honoree video, saying, “When you consider the economic disparity, especially in communities of color and immigrant communities, you quickly begin to understand that the only way you can tackle the problem is if you come together as a village.”
Paul said it best — it takes a village, and we’ve come together to tackle educational inequality in our community. Summer Search is supporting students in their high school and college years, and Dawn and Paul are picking up where we leave off when our students and their peers transition to the workforce.
We’re proud to have partners like Dawn and Paul, and teammates like Liberty Mutual and State Street in our fight to close the educational opportunity gap faced by students from low-income backgrounds, particularly students of color. As Dawn so eloquently stated, we are, “helping open doors for people who don’t even know there are doors out there to be opened.”