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<\/a><\/p>\nOconee Street Methodist Church<\/p>\n
On a stormy Thursday evening, students, parents and volunteers crowd into Oconee Street Methodist Church despite the dreary weather. The weekly meeting of U-Lead cannot be missed.\u00a0<\/span>People greet each other and eat dinner that was prepared by volunteers. \u00a0In a short amount of time, U-Lead has become a staple for many local students who need help with homework, college applications, essays and college scholarships.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s your essay about?\u201d a University of Georgia student asks to a high school senior. The student needs help writing an essay for her AP Literature class, and she has a strong case of senioritis. The high school student laments that the novel is confusing, and that she doesn’t know how she should structure the essay. For the next hour and a half, she will receive help from three different volunteers. The volunteers, although they have not read the book, work to help her structure the essay. After an hour and a half, the student has written three paragraphs and feels more confident about completing the essay.<\/span><\/p>\n U-Lead was founded in 2014, with the focus on helping undocumented students pursue higher education. Since its inception, the organization has dedicated time to activities such as tutoring, preparing for the ACT and SAT, applying for college and renewing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA) applications. DACA is a federal program that gives immigrant youth the opportunity to obtain a work permit and protection from deportation under certain conditions. The Trump administration announced last year that it intends to phase out the program.<\/span><\/p>\n Betina Kaplan, a Spanish professor at the University of Georgia, is one of the co-founders of U-Lead.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe met with a few students, and they told us that what they needed the most was one-on-one advising, looking into all the materials they had and helping them will all the steps of applying to college,\u201d Kaplan said. <\/span><\/p>\n The nonprofit started off small, but immediately, Kaplan knew that it had the potential to change young people\u2019s lives for the better. Before U-Lead, Kaplan\u2019s position at the university caused her to feel conflicted. She was teaching at one of the four colleges in the state of Georgia that bans all undocumented students. She felt stressed and even contemplated quitting teaching. Now that she is helping to run U-Lead, she feels at ease teaching at the university.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI feel more comfortable being at UGA because I am doing this other side work with a population that matters a lot to me,\u201d Kaplan said. \u201cI like to think that all those projects made me a better teacher at UGA because I am more student-centered now than I was before.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n According to the Migration Policy Institute, there are approximately 59,000 undocumented people in Georgia aged 16 to 24. After high school, many undocumented students are faced with making tough decisions about whether college is a viable option for them. Most undocumented students choose not to go to college because of the incredibly high tuitions, and many that do enroll end up dropping out.<\/span><\/p>\n U-Lead seeks to encourage these youth to go to college and searches for ways to make college more affordable. Scholarships are key. The nonprofit participates in different fundraisers year-round and constantly applies for scholarships. It has received grants in the past as well. In 2017, U-Lead helped send over 42 Athens-area students to college. These students received over $130,000 in scholarship funds.<\/span><\/p>\n Elizbeth Sanchez, from Elberton, Georgia, is a current college student whose life has changed by getting involved with U-Lead.<\/span><\/p>\n