Thank you to The Boston Globe Magazine for featuring our Executive Director Corey Yarbrough and 826 Boston in their year-end piece, “Bostonians of the Year 2025: First responders, university presidents, and others who exemplified courage”
From Corey: “What an honor! I’m incredibly proud to lead an organization of courageous changemakers, courageous team members who show up for our students every day, courageous volunteers who support courageous students as they tackle any assignment that comes their way, and a community of courageous donors who sustain our commitment to elevating youth voices in the face of adversity. Thank you all for your continued support!”
Read the article on 826 Boston below or the full article on bostonglobe.com.
Speaking up with the world’s eyes upon them. Rushing into a burning building. Standing firm when others folded. In choosing the difficult path, they showed us what strength looks like.
Standing on Principle: 826 Boston
For 826 Boston, staying committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion came at a steep cost this year: namely, an annual $250,000 federal grant.
It was a price the nonprofit, which offers free tutoring and writing programs to Boston Public Schools students, was willing to pay to stand up for its principles.
When the Trump administration rolled out rules in January requiring grant recipients to drop DEI policies if they wanted federal funding, 826 Boston faced a choice: distance itself from its values or risk losing money used to hire tutors through AmeriCorps.
For the board, it wasn’t a hard decision. Members could not walk away from DEI without compromising the nonprofit’s work to lift diverse voices. The hard part was figuring out how to make up the shortfall — there was no big endowment to dip into. The only fallback: Making an appeal to the community for donations.
The money poured in.
By July, 826 Boston had raised about $260,000 — enough to hire five tutors on staff to continue the organization’s mission to serve close to 4,000 students and provide over 24,000 hours of tutoring a year. Some 600 donors came forward, 85 percent of whom were new to the organization.
“We’ve received so much love from the community that it was truly overwhelming,” says Corey Yarbrough, 826 Boston’s executive director. “A lot of people stepped up to support our organization in small and in big ways.”
Among those people was Amy Russo, a retired financial services executive who more than doubled her annual donation. She thought what 826 Boston leaders did was brave, and supporting them was a way to send a message to the federal government. “It was an opportunity,” says Russo, “to do something at a time when one feels sometimes quite powerless.”
Yarbrough says the organization will continue to fundraise next year and beyond to remain staffed with tutors. For now, however, 826 Boston ends 2025 with its values — and its funding — intact.
-Shirley Leung, The Boston Globe
Photos by Adam Detour
Learn more about 826 Boston’s decision.
We’re in the final weeks of our end of year campaign to raise $200,000. Donate today!
← Previous