Trinity College Receives Grant for Pre-College Tutoring and Academic Awareness in Hartford Public Schools

Trinity College has received a $75,000 McCabe Fund grant from the Lumina Foundation for Education to expand the College’s community-based, pre-college tutoring and academic awareness program known as the Adolescent Mentoring Program (AMP).

The award-winning AMP currently serves low-income youth at the Hartford Boys & Girls Club. Trinity students meet with their mentees on Saturday mornings to provide one-on-one tutoring, mentoring, and discussions about the academic and social rigors of college. Other activities to reinforce learning include library trips, tours of area colleges, and general discussions about students’ lives. Students also participate in recreational activities like bowling and trips to professional sports games, to strengthen bonding.  

Developed by Descatur “Dez” Potier, who graduated from Trinity this May, the widely praised program now serves 30 area youth. While mentoring at AMP, Potier reserved time during sessions for occasional screenings of films and documentaries on topics such as the civil rights and Chicano movements. “Some kids just don’t get the complete social history that they deserve to get or that they need to get to be productive citizens,” he says. “Something that we as students need to foster is a sense of having our own community service projects that are personalized by us, that we’re putting our heart into, and that we run on our own accord,” says Potier. “That’s when students will really start impacting the community.”

The McCabe Fund supports organizations that enable students — particularly first-generation college students, low-income students and students of color — to gain access to postsecondary education.