Dan-Chi Nguyen, a fourth-year nursing major, is no stranger to working with children. When she was five, her mother opened a home-based preschool, and she often helped around the classroom.
“Work and school can add up, and then you get to reconnect with the mentors and mentees and just have fun together, work on relationships and build friendships,” Nguyen said of DREAM.
Now, Nguyen works as the social media manager for DREAM Orchard Gardens, one of Northeastern’s DREAM chapters. DREAM is a non-profit organization that facilitates mentorships with youth ages 5 to 18 from under-resourced communities and operates no-cost out-of-school programs. Northeastern houses two university chapters of DREAM: Orchard Gardens and Madison Park, both of which connect students with youth from communities in Roxbury.
Members of DREAM are paired with students in the communities, creating a meaningful relationship that benefits both the mentor and mentee.
“We work with youth in low-income housing to close the opportunity gap and provide them with opportunities for advancing their education and extracurriculars,” said Kate Simpson, a fourth-year biology major and co-chair of Northeastern’s DREAM Orchard Gardens chapter.
Programming for DREAM Madison Park and Orchard Gardens takes place every Friday and Saturday, respectively. The Orchard Gardens chapter alternates between group and one-on-one activities, while Madison Park mostly meets in small groups with mentors and mentees, with some weeks having one-on-one activities, including museum trips, baking and sports.
“Going to Northeastern, we are part of a community that we have taken up space in. I think it is important to learn about the communities we are part of to gain perspective of our privilege and place in these communities,” said DREAM Madison Park Co-Chair Anjali Deo, a fourth-year biology major.
DREAM Madison Park has a postgraduate fund for its mentees that becomes accessible to them when they turn 18 years old. The amount accumulates based on how long the mentee has been part of DREAM and how many years they have until they graduate.
“The Madison Park DREAM chapter is the first out of all national chapters to start a college-post-grad fund for mentees,” Deo said. “We want to help introduce the kids to new opportunities and ideas of what they can make of their future.”
Youth who participate in DREAM can attend Camp DREAM, an environmentally-focused, 10-day summer camp in Vermont. Mentors from Northeastern’s chapter have attended the camp in the past and hope to bring current mentees in the future.
“We attended the Orchard Gardens school winter arts performance to support some of our kids that were performing and they were super excited to see us,” Simpson said. “It was really sweet to see them flourishing in their natural environment.”
Both chapters of DREAM have long-lasting impacts on mentees and mentors alike. “I love getting to work with the kids every weekend. It gives me such a purpose. It’s really the best part of my week every week,” Simpson said.
