OneGoal Hosts Third Annual Golf for Grads
Local education nonprofit raises nearly $240,000 to ensure more students earn college degrees
HOUSTON (March 14, 2018) — OneGoal hosted its Third Annual Golf for Grads fundraiser on Thursday, March 8, at Topgolf Katy. The signature event is a unique networking opportunity and tee-off competition that serves to build awareness about the college degree divide in Houston, while also celebrating the success of OneGoal college-bound students, known as Fellows. With support from corporate and community champions, nearly $240,000 was raised to benefit students in the three-year program.
“At OneGoal, we understand that a college degree, while certainly not a guarantee, is one of the strongest indicators of opportunity and access for adults in our country. This makes our current reality all the more troubling – just 22 percent of students from the lowest economic quartile graduate from college, compared with 67 percent of their more affluent peers,” said Patricia McKee, interim executive director for OneGoal – Houston. “But the narrative is changing. This year, Fellows from our very first OneGoal-Houston cohort will graduate from college. We couldn’t be prouder of them or more confident about the opportunities they will pursue and the impact they will have for themselves, for their families, and for the broader Houston community.”
Notable attendees at Golf for Grads included OneGoal board members Thomas B. Nusz, Chief Executive Officer and President of Oasis Petroleum; Michael Lou, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Oasis Petroleum; Jay Chernosky, Managing Director, Energy + Power Investment Banking Group, Wells Fargo Securities; and Wynne Snoots, Partner, EnCap Investments LP. Professional golfers Tommy Wolfenberger, Art Scarborough and Tommy Rush also attended.
During the event, Mays Al-Maliki, a OneGoal Fellow and freshman at University of Houston-Downtown, shared her journey to college.
“Over the past three years, my involvement in OneGoal has taught me many lessons, which continue to be true day by day,” said Al-Maliki. “One of them is to truly realize the importance of being a real part of the community in which we exist. Our Program Director, Mrs. Fain, taught us to unite with one another and have healthy interactions, even on hard days or when we felt down. She taught us about how the strength in a community could be leveraged to empower yourself and others around you.”
OneGoal’s three-year model includes a credit-bearing class during students’ junior and senior years of high school. Once the Fellows enter college, teachers known as Program Directors help students bridge the transition from high school to college by providing one-on-one intensive, remote coaching through the first day of the students’ sophomore year of college.
OneGoal has been serving the Houston community since 2012 and currently partners with 33 high schools throughout Aldine, Spring Branch, and Houston Independent School Districts, and five YES Prep Campuses. OneGoal has grown from serving 150 students to more than 2,100 in the 2017-2018 school year. As students in the program graduate from high school and move forward with their post-secondary plans, OneGoal staff continues to provide support through partnerships with a number of postsecondary institutions across the state of Texas, providing resources and support known to directly impact college completion rates, statewide.
About OneGoal
OneGoal makes college graduation a reality for all students. We collaborate closely with public schools in low-income communities, providing teachers with a robust curriculum, technology, training and coaching to implement our three-year model with a group of 25 students (called Fellows) per cohort. Teachers (called Program Directors) support the same group of Fellows beginning in their junior year of high school and bridge the gap through their first year of college. In communities where students typically have a 22% chance of graduating from college, 82% of OneGoal Fellows are enrolling in college and 78% are persisting in college or have graduated. OneGoal works in Chicago, Houston, Massachusetts, Metro Atlanta, New York and recently expanded to the Bay Area.