Hi, I'm Adam, Iola's partner, and I've watched her pour everything she has into her students for years.

I've watched her stay up late lesson planning, lose sleep over a kid who's having a hard time, and show up every single day with more patience and creativity than most people could imagine. Teaching isn't just what she does. It's who she is.

So, when she got into Harvard, I cried before she did.

Iola is a first-generation college graduate who spent most of her childhood just trying to hold it together while looking perfectly fine on the outside. Nobody noticed she was struggling. Nobody asked. She became a teacher because she remembered exactly what it felt like to be that kid, and she refused to let it happen to anyone else.

She has spent the last six years in elementary school classrooms in Los Angeles, first in Title 1 public schools, then at a small progressive school where she finally gets to teach the way she has always believed in. I have watched her light up talking about her students. A little one who used to hide under her desk learned to stand at the front of the room and present his work to his peers. A student who couldn't name her own emotions learned to advocate for herself. These are the stories she carries with her, and there are so many more.

But Iola has always known that one classroom isn't enough. The system is broken in ways that no single teacher can fix alone. She wants to understand it more deeply, through research, through policy, through the kind of evidence-based work that creates lasting change at scale. That's why she applied to Harvard's Graduate School of Education. And that's why they said yes.

The cost of attendance is $106,196. Harvard awarded her $25,000 in grants, and we are so grateful. But that still leaves over $81,000, and I am asking you to help close that gap.

Iola was once the child nobody noticed. Harvard noticed. Please help us get her there.

With so much gratitude,

Adam