Each summer in NYC, government, private, and public organizations come together to fund and manage a program that's become vital to tens of thousands of young people in the city: the Summer Youth Employment Program or SYEP, which matches teenagers with hundreds of employers and pays non profits to manage these relationships.

This year, in the wake of Covid-19, Mayor de Blasio cancelled the $125 million program for the summer. Saskia Traill, CEO of ExpandED Schools, worked with many others to build a civic coalition to take the lead, and government followed and restored funding, ultimately saving the summer for 35,000 NYC teens.