Alumni Story: Mike Evans '00

"After graduating in 2000, I went to the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific through the Dartmouth Education program and taught English, math, and science to elementary schoolers there for a year. I returned to the Boston area and ran two parts of a youth development farming program called The Food Project, which brings teenagers from different backgrounds together to grow food for their community. In 2004, I moved to Austin, Texas and worked for Breakthrough (called Summerbridge elsewhere in the country), an academic after-school program of sorts that works with middle schoolers and high schoolers who will be first in their family to graduate from college. In 2006, I worked for one summer to start El Ranchito, a nature immersion summer camp for under-served kids. Then I helped to start and directed Austin Bat Cave, a writing and tutoring center that teaches creative and expository writing to kids from diverse backgrounds. Then in 2007/2008, I co-founded and co-directed Urban Roots, a youth development farming program in Austin (largely modeled after The Food Project), which annually donates 40% of the 25,000 lbs of food grown to hunger relief." (9/10)