In the mid-1980s, Daniel Rose, Chairman of real estate development and management company Rose Associates, set out to improve student outcomes at the New York City public school with the worst reading scores. Within just three years, he saw huge improvements through the after-school program he started, and was ready to expand. Enter the Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF), a mentoring program Rose founded that supports inner city children to become college graduates, and currently boasts a 100 percent high school graduation rate for Central Harlem children going to public schools. HEAF accepts applications from students in the final semester of the fifth grade and the final semester of the tenth grade. The program seeks those who demonstrate strong academic outcomes to date, and works to supplement their formal education with further academic and character guidance, as well as personal development programs.HEAF supports youth through their successful graduation from a four-year college and does so with multiple programs, for example, with a variety of after-school, Saturday, and summer programs. In addition to financial support, Rose has been personally involved with the nonprofit. Rose has found meaning in working to motivate the youth with the long-term and clear-cut benefits of an education. For example, Rose asked Harlem Educational Activities Fund graduates to bring in their college acceptance letters, and says that the organization soon had a wall collage of acceptance letters to colleges such as Syracuse and Wesleyan. He also posted large charts showing comparisons of the lifetime earnings of people at varying levels of education, from high school dropout to those with a post-doctoral degree.
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Rose is proud of the work he has done with the HEAF youth through the years, remembering fondly how he and his wife have stayed in touch with many of them. For example, Rose shared how one young woman—whom he still remembered very clearly as a little girl—invited him and his wife to a military base in Virginia for her big day. After two tours of duty in Iraq and another in Afghanistan, she was being promoted to U.S. Army major. "She's now in her 30s and she's a major in the Army, clearly destined for great things," says Rose. "They're sending her back to schools and that's our legacy—our legacy is the kids going on to do great things.”
