When the world shut down in 2020, Segun didn’t expect a late-night Google search to change his life. He was new to Charlotte and looking for a way to stay connected to something familiar: writing and community. That search led him to Carolina Youth Coalition (CYC), a college prep nonprofit connecting students with the resources, opportunities, and support they need to reach their goals.
At the time, volunteering looked different. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CYC’s programming had moved online, and connection happened through computer screens and Zoom calls. Segun began tutoring students virtually, helping them shape college essays from a distance.
What started with writing soon became something much bigger.
As CYC returned to in-person programming, Segun was invited to become a mentor. He saw an opportunity to support students beyond their applications. He saw an opportunity to encourage, challenge, and help them recognize possibilities they may not have considered for themselves.
For Segun, the role was personal.
Growing up in Nigeria, he had a woman in his community whom he called his “local mom.” She gathered neighborhood children, organized activities, and guided young people through school and life. She showed him what it meant for a community to intentionally invest in its young people.
“She organized events for the community and guided the youth through the planning process,” Segun recalls. “When I read about what CYC was doing here, I knew I wanted to be part of it.”
That early experience shaped how Segun approached mentoring at CYC. He understood that students need more than information about college. They need people who will listen to them, challenge them, advocate for them, and help them see their potential.
During virtual sessions, he quickly realized that the first step was creating an environment where students felt comfortable sharing their stories. Sessions often began with simple icebreakers before turning to essays and applications.
The goal wasn’t simply to produce a stronger personal statement. It was to help students recognize that their experiences, ambitions, and voices had value.
That became especially important when Segun began working with students pursuing some of the nation’s most competitive scholarships, including QuestBridge, the Morehead-Cain Scholarship, and the Gates Scholarship.
The application process was demanding. Drafts came one after another, often followed by a text asking if he could look at “just one more.”
Segun remembers feeling the responsibility that came with being trusted by students who were counting on him.
“I really hope I’m giving them good advice,” he thought. “They trusted me. They were counting on me.”
His role wasn’t to write their stories for them. It was to help them uncover what made their stories compelling. It was to ask the right questions, challenge their ideas, and give them the confidence to tell their own stories.
Months later, several students received major scholarships.
Today, they are preparing to graduate from college debt-free. Along the way, they have completed internships, traveled internationally, participated in leadership opportunities, and built professional networks that expanded their vision for what their futures could look like.
For Segun, the outcome illustrates what can happen when a young person has the right support at a pivotal moment.
“Four years later, they’re about to graduate from college,” he says. “They’ve done a million internships. They don’t have any student debt. And it all started with the writing.”
But the writing was only the beginning.
The scholarships created financial freedom. The opportunities that followed created experience and social capital. The networks opened doors to new possibilities, and Segun’s mentorship gave students someone in their corner as they navigated each step.
That is the power of intentional support.
At CYC, making a match is about more than connecting a student with an available mentor. It is about creating meaningful connections that can meet students where they are and help them move toward where they want to go. The right mentor can help a student recognize an opportunity, prepare for it, and have the confidence to pursue it.
And the impact can continue long after graduation.
Some of the students Segun mentored have returned to CYC themselves, ready to support the next generation. Students who once needed guidance are now in a position to become mentors, professionals, and community leaders who can create opportunities for others.
Even years later, Segun still receives graduation announcements, job updates, and messages of thanks from students he worked with during those early CYC years.
Stories like these reveal what an investment in college preparation can truly accomplish. A contribution to CYC is not simply helping a student complete an application. It can help connect that student to a mentor, a scholarship, a professional network, and opportunities that shape the trajectory of their future.
Segun encourages students not to measure their success against someone else’s. Their college, career, and life paths will be uniquely their own.
His job is to help them find their voice, recognize their strengths, and believe their future is worth pursuing.
At Carolina Youth Coalition, that work starts with an intentional match. But its impact can extend for decades.
Because when we connect young people with the right people, resources, and opportunities, we don’t just help them get to college. We help them build what’s next!