The beginning...
In 1986, clergy and educators met in Roanoke to talk about how the community could help fill the gap in educational services for African American students. The group appealed to area community colleges to join with African American churches to foster a partnership to encourage educational opportunities and the resulting economic and social benefits. A network of church leaders pulled together with four community colleges to offer incentives and support for young people to enroll in college, stay in college, and successfully complete their studies.

The Alliance for Excellence difference...
While many programs and scholarships support African American participation in higher education, we believe that Alliance for Excellence and its broad coalition of church leaders and educators has contributed enormously to the racial parity that Virginia's community colleges have achieved. A partnership of community colleges and African American churches was the perfect combination of educational resources and community leadership. Community colleges offer the most affordable and accessible avenue to higher education, and African American churches have historically been the champions of civil rights, economic development, community cohesiveness, and education. Participating colleges provide in-kind support in staff time, office space, and communications as well as annual grants to match church sources for various outreach efforts.

What have we accomplished...
Alliance for Excellence has employed part-time program coordinators, sponsored local Alliance committees in the service regions of the participating colleges, and offered a broad array of motivational programs, academic awards, support systems, tutoring, mentoring, and college and church-hosted after school programs. Within four years of the inception of this program, African American student enrollment at participating community colleges doubled and has continued to increase since then. It quickly became apparent that the same programs offered for young people and students would be a tremendous resource for children and youth who come from families where college may have previously been unattainable. Thus, the Youth Alliance was created in the mid-1990s.