Auburn Outreach program transforms students, parents, mentors

Auburn University Outreach’s Young Professionals in Training (YPIT) program is more than a pipeline to college; it’s a catalyst for transformation.

For five years, it has shaped the futures of middle and high school students across East Alabama, while profoundly impacting university student mentors.

Jailin Sanders, an industrial and systems engineering major in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering and an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, has been a lead mentor or administrator with YPIT since its inception, watching it grow from 12 students meeting over Zoom to 50 in-person participants today.

“We actually had 63 applicants this year but can only serve 50,” he said. “That rapid growth is a testament to the students’ experience and the parents who want to be involved. They talk about it with their friends, and they want to come back year after year.”

Sanders returned each year, and even though he graduates on Dec. 13, he hopes to extend his VISTA appointment through the school year since, he said, it wouldn’t be right to leave halfway through.

Christian Lomack and Parker Ford joined YPIT this semester at Sanders’ urging. In just months, they’ve become believers in the program’s impact. Lomack, a rehabilitation and disability studies major in the College of Education who hopes to become a school counselor, sees YPIT as a model for community engagement.

“Kids don’t feel the love of the community unless they’re in it,” he said. “This puts them in it, makes them part of something.”

Ford, a biomedical sciences major in the College of Sciences and Mathematics, personally knows the benefits of community. Before starting his first year at Auburn, he participated in the college’s STEM Summer Bridge program, a four-week residential program aimed at building skills and fostering networks for incoming students. It is there that he met Sanders, who was serving as an engineering counselor.

Now fraternity brothers and members of the Harold A. Franklin Society, where Ford serves as vice president, he said YPIT has inspired him to stay involved and recruit more mentors.

Anna-Margaret Goldman, who oversees YPIT as director of Auburn’s Center for Educational Outreach and Engagement, called Auburn student volunteers “a key to the program’s success.”

“They help the high school students, especially, imagine what their life would look like in college,” she said. “They have real conversations with mentors like Jailin and also benefit from being surrounded with peers from other schools who have similar aspirations.”

Parents benefit too. While students attend themed sessions, parents join their own support groups led by community leaders.

“It’s a community that supports each other,” Goldman said.

Each year, YPIT adopts a theme and designs activities around it. Last year’s entrepreneurship focus included a Shark Tank-style pitch competition at Auburn’s New Venture Accelerator. This year, health care careers took center stage. Students met medical students from Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine-Auburn, learned about public health from the College of Nursing’s Chris Martin and toured a telehealth station in Chambers County.

This month, students and parents visited O Grows in Opelika. They participated in a community wreath-making event and toured the gardens for lessons on healthy eating.

“These experiences give students broad exposure to different career paths and skills,” Sanders said. “It’s about showing them what’s possible.”

And the results of this approach speak volumes. Not only do more students return each year, but Goldman said, “100 percent of our students have graduated from high school and attended college.

For parents like Decetti Taylor, who drives from Tuskegee, Alabama, YPIT is invaluable.

“It’s the support system and the exposure to careers,” she said. “The kids go to their class and, we [the parents] go to ours. It makes it worth it. Every minute of it.”

Her daughter, Keylee Taylor, is a sophomore at Booker T. Washington High School. Since starting YPIT in the seventh grade, she has developed several career aspirations. Decetti Taylor said Keylee was initially interested in engineering but “is now talking about the medical field.”

Keylee Taylor said she hasn’t made any decisions yet and is still enjoying exploring different fields. However, she is considering universities like Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama A&M University and Tuskegee University based on her interest in science, agriculture or medicine.

Ebony Boyd, Keylee’s aunt, makes the same drive for her 14-year-old son, who attends Montgomery Catholic High School.

“He needed academic and social support, and this program provided that,” she said. “It’s like a mini college because all these students from different places come together, collaborate and learn.”

The transformative nature of YPIT is clear to everyone.

“Our students build confidence, expand their horizons and create a sense of belonging, as do their parents,” Goldman said.

And the Auburn mentors? They become leaders who understand the power of service.

As Sanders put it, “YPIT isn’t just a program; it’s a family.”