Urban Partners Los Angeles

Contributions to our program compensate local tutors like Killiy & Eddie:


For 10 years, Urban Partners LA has hosted Without Limits, a tutoring program for inner city-families at the First Unitarian Church in the heart of Koreatown, an area where many families have significant  barriers to quality education. Local schools are underfunded and overpopulated; home support is limited while parents work 2-3 jobs and struggle to understand their children’s school work because they are not native English speakers. Many children are the first in their families to receive a formal education.

But at Urban Partners, we are barrier busters.

Our program provides free tutoring services in math and reading to elementary schoolers, as well as a free light breakfast for children. We have also begun to offer ESL and yoga classes for parents while their children are in tutoring. More importantly, we offer the awareness, access and encouragement necessary for families to support their children’s educational growth beyond the program and put them on the path towards higher education. 

We have two amazing local high schoolers we’re looking to fund as paid tutors:

·        Killiy lives on the same street as the location for our program after her family overcame years of battling challenges with housing and low income occupations.  Today, she is a star student but had to work as a child to help her parents.  Now Killiy wants to help tutor because she never had access to those opportunities growing up. 

·        Eddie, who started with us as a struggling 2nd grader, stayed for 5 years and loved the program so much he has returned in 9th grade as a star student looking to give back.

We’d love to pay these phenomenal young people for their hard work and have started this campaign for them.  We, the Board of UPLA, would so appreciate any support you can give to provide funding for Eddie & Killiy.  Your contributions will give them work experience for college and careers.  As tutors, they will serve as examples of successful, teenage role models for younger children. 

My family and I have been volunteering at "Without Limits for Math and Reading" for almost 4 years now. My five-year-old son Nikolai (who you might have seen at the close of the spot) has practically grown up there.

For us, "Without Limits" is not just a chance to give back with our time and donations, but it's also an opportunity for us to see first hand what the power of a well run, homegrown, community program can do. 

In fact, several of the students (many of whom were previously homeless) that started at the program years ago, are now excelling in high school. Not only that, but a few are now working as paid employees to tutor the younger kids. Each of them is using the money they earn tutoring to save for college, so the program is absolutely having a very positive, measurable, and multiplying effect.

It's our current goal with the campaign to raise $2,000 by the end of June to expand the program to serve more kids and run it through the end of the year and beyond. 

I know you have a lot of requests for donations, but if you could give what you can to "Without Limits," I promise your kindness will be put to use each and every Saturday morning.