Alumni Connect was a concept turned into grassroots action by ten Long Beach Polytechnic High School Alumni in January of 2006. After experiencing a privileged and rich educational environment at Loyola Marymount University for one semester, I felt the need to extend to my under resourced peers at my alma mater Long Beach Polytechnic High School the fundamental right to an education. With nine other recent Poly High graduates, I founded Alumni Connect, a youth-run mentoring program. Alumni Connect recently received 501(c)(3) nonprofit status recognition. We began as a simple effort to give first generation and environmentally disadvantaged students an opportunity to pursue the American dream. We helped fill out community college applications, found scholarship opportunities, supported students through the financial aid application process, and more importantly, encouraged the heart through our one-on-one mentoring. The Long Beach community benefited greatly from having its young people come back to address the unmet needs of the community. The large number of first generation Mexican Americans as well as first generation Cambodian Americans whose parents escaped the Khmer Rouge massacre make up much of the youth population in Long Beach. In addition to the lack of parental resources and English language proficiency, Long Beach's gangs and poverty ridden areas continue to marginalize historically oppressed groups. In its third year, Alumni Connect now has eighteen mentors working with over forty high school seniors. Our mentors are Poly Alumni as well as my peers at Loyola Marymount University. We have almost exhausted our funding from community grants and donations and are in need of minimal funding to provide programming such as a Khmer Parent Financial Aid Information Night in the first language of many first generation Cambodian Americans, as well as a graduation celebration for our students, many of whom cannot afford such a celebration of education. We put on two College Awareness Rallies a year for Poly's student body of over 4,800 students. Our funding is also used for t-shirts, finals care packages for our students, and other mentor-student bonding events such as our annual Bondfire. Alumni Connect hopes to continue our efforts to level the playing field by working for justice and equal opportunity in our community. It is our belief that large scale change is only possible with the support of community groups who work to improve lives and build futures one person at a time.