Central Valley Scholars

Year Founded: 2020

Central Valley Scholars is a community-based and community-minded organization, puts the needs of their students first. With an emphasis on adaptability, Central Valley Scholars molds their programs and services to fit the needs of their students. As a youth-led organization built by Central Valley students, their own struggles upon accessing education are products of the systemic barriers placed upon our communities and identities. Central Valley Scholars has created an organization that not only directly addresses intersectional needs but directly attacks the systemic forms of oppression placed against communities. Central Valley Scholars empower their community and youth to do the same by providing spaces and funding to develop their own programs and services that directly impact their communities.

Central Valley Scholars prides themselves on providing spaces for the most forgotten populations in the Central Valley. With an initiative to introduce and create accessible pathways towards education, they have made it their responsibility to accommodate and assist students from all types of backgrounds and with all types of identities. 

The Central Valley resides in a region with a deep transformative past, in which our ancestors have fought and died for the spaces we are able to hold today. Further, the theirstory of Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Queer, and other marginalized populations have been and are purposely erased in our education and textbooks. While we often may believe that we are the engineers of the programs and projects we create, this assumption is false. Our near existence is based on the survival of our past families and those who protested and were killed for us to continue the work we do today. As a youth-led and built organization, we recognize that our work is not new, it has been passed on to us by our ancestors, and we aim to continue their legacies.