Jonathan Edmond '15
Major: Accounting
Independent Project: Community Service Summer Fellowship

Jonathan believes that you get out of life what you put into it.

In the spring of 2012, he heard about the inaugural Community Service Summer Fellowship Program that was being co-sponsored by Emmanuel's Center for Mission & Spirituality and the Jean Yawkey Center for Community Leadership at a general members meeting of the Black Student Union. He jumped at the opportunity to fill one of the four spaces.

Inspired by the work he'd previously done with the Hyde Square Task Force and the South End Technology Center, Jonathan developed a full-time independent project focused on promoting the importance of college education and technology literacy among inner-city youth in Boston. He reached out to several community centers in the city, including the Vine Street Community Center and the Castle Square Community Center, to speak with the youth about making college a reality.

"The kids wanted to be basketball players or football players or rappers," Jonathan said. "That's what they were familiar with. They thought, 'I know so much about this, so I can become it.' I wanted them to know so much about college that they felt like they could become college students."

For Jonathan, his project hit close to home.

Growing up in a large family in Mattapan, he never believed college was a possibility until his mother enrolled him in a charter high school and he became involved with the South End Technology Center, founded by Boston educator and activist, Mel King. 

"Mel King set me in the right direction," Jonathan said. "He told me to focus on the books." In danger of failing, Edmond turned his education around during his junior year of high school and became a self-described "workaholic," making the honor roll for the first time. He began to think of school not as work, but as an investment in his future.

"I looked around at the people in my neighborhood and thought, 'Why should I be like those guys who just live off of their struggling parents? Why should I not try to better my own situation?'" he said.

As a rising sophomore at Emmanuel, Jonathan knew he wanted to share his experiences with the kids at the community centers, whose lives are so similar to his own.

"It's a tough story to tell, but I use these things to get them to listen. Whatever I can do to help somebody learn, I try to do."

Jonathan has stayed in contact with the organizations that he served during the fellowship. "I don't want them to think, 'Jonathan was just here for the summer,'" he said. "I want them to know that I'm their friend and that I want to help them out any way I can."

Jonathan also acknowledges his position as a young, hip role model for the kids, offering a perspective different than that of a teacher or a parent.

"Coming from me, it means more," he said. "They are really happy to show me their successes, the A's on their report cards."

An accounting major, Jonathan hopes to intern with Goldman Sachs in the near future, a head start on his ultimate goal of becoming a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist.