Graduating from high school in California is difficult and enrolling in college can be an even more bleak prospect. According to LAUSD Linked Learning, a college and career-ready pathway program, nearly a third of new ninth-graders in California drop out before graduation. Another third finish high school but lack the academic and technical readiness to succeed in college or a career. Only one third of high school students in California graduate on time and transition easily to postsecondary education and lasting career success. However, at Kid City, students have a 99% high school graduation and college enrollment rate.

Now these students are in colleges across California and the country and for the first time, at an all women's college (Mills College in Oakland, CA). In addition, three Kid City students transferred from community college to UC Santa Barbara. Thanks to Centenary and Hope United Methodist Churches for the colorful and thoughtful care packages, which we distributed to college students at send-off parties (pictured on left).

On the left is Ricardo Santuario, an incoming freshmen at UC Berkeley and his family. Before he left for Berkeley, his grandma came to Kid City with beautiful flowers and a poem of thanks for the Kid City staff. For many Kid City families this is the first time a son or daughter graduates high school and goes to college, an important mark of progress in their family history.