Shirley Acevedo, Latino U College Access Inc.

Helping kids prepare for the future

Since its founding in 2012, the White Plains-based nonprofit Latino U College Access Inc. has grown to the point it”™s now operating on a $1 million annual budget as it fulfills its mission to increase the number of Latino youngsters attending college.

It took time to build support to the level it has reached today, with sponsors and supporters including PepsiCo, TD Bank”™s Charitable Foundation, Sculptor Capital Management, the Westchester Community Foundation, Bloomberg, Univision New York and Westchester County, among others.

In 2021, Cosette Gutierrez, who had been serving as deputy executive director, became executive director on July 1, succeeding founder and former CEO Shirley Acevedo Buontempo. Buontempo told the Business Journal that she founded Latino U to address education inequity.

Gutierrez said that over the next three years the organization hopes to raise an additional $1 million to help support increasing the number of students participating in the organization”™s programs.

“We”™re also creating and developing a walk-in resource center because we know that our community needs the additional support. So, we envision a space that has resources, information about college and a safe space where students can talk to our team to help them navigate the college process,” Gutierrez said.

For more, visit http://latinou.org/