America’s Promise believes that true change happens at the local level. So when we launched the GradNation Community Summits initiative in 2013, we wanted to support and fuel collaborative, community-based efforts to raise high school graduation rates and increase post-secondary enrollment.

As a homeless student, icebreakers were always tough for me. If my classmates asked about my family or tried to organize sleepovers, I couldn’t tell them that me and my younger sister didn’t have a place to live. I was afraid that if they knew, they would take her away from me.