20 years ago, the Hope Scholars program started with 1 employee and 1 student. Today, the program has supported more than 300 students, including graduate students, through financial stipends, a food pantry, networking events, mental health counseling and peer mentorship. These resources help students who, statistically, have faced a difficult path to Berkeley. 64% of students in foster care in California — as opposed to 87% of their peers — graduate high school in four years. “People who grew up in the foster care system aren’t supposed to succeed … People here are spectacular and have beaten all the odds.” — Erick Mendes, a senior from Petaluma who will become the first person in his biological family to graduate college. Hope Scholars’ track record shows “20 years of proving that when we invest in students who have experienced foster care or childhood homelessness, we are investing in brilliance, in leaders, in scholars and changemakers,” said its current director, Charly King B...