History

US Empowered was founded by Matt King, an exceptional teacher in a public high school on the South Side of Chicago. Matt was tired of watching his students fall short of college. He believed that every student in his school had the potential to graduate from a four-year college if they received the comprehensive resources and structured support they deserved. Matt worked together with co-founders Eddie Lou and Dawn Pankonien to start US Empowered, which was founded in 2003.

Our co-founders, with the aid of original board members John Dugan and Darrell Williams, decided to pilot US Empowered for three years from 2003 to 2006. During that time, the founders tested multiple program models to identify best practices that could be scaled to reach students of all levels. In early 2007, the Board of Directors hired Jeff Nelson, a former Chicago Public School teacher and Teach For America corps member, as the first Executive Director.

Jeff was charged with building a thriving, sustainable organization that could spread our mission and program to teachers and students throughout Chicago and the country. That fall, US Empowered expanded to three schools. Then in the fall of 2008, US Empowered entered four new schools to serve a total of seven Chicago area high schools.

This year, US Empowered empowers 32 teachers and 227 students from 11 low-income high schools in Chicago.