Texas GEAR UP in Action: Parent 2 Parent

What happens when parents come together? Greatness. In East Texas, parents are coming together like never before. The launch of a GEAR UP outreach program called Parent2Parent is connecting educators with parents to close the knowledge gap and expand the educational possibilities for all the kids in the community. The East Texas GEAR UP team assembled school district personnel, university faculty, social workers, community organizers, and church leaders to introduce the bilingual Opening Doors curriculum to help parents understand how their children can make the college dream a reality. The program also empowers parents to extend the learning by training them to actually go out and share information with other parents in their community. Already, the impact has been tremendous—it's pretty much the best kind of paying it forward you can imagine.