For 40 years, Mission Graduates (MG) has been an important institution in San Francisco’s Mission District–an ethnically mixed, low-income community, where per capita income is just $13,951. Mission Graduates (then called St. John’s Educational Thresholds Center) was first created by members of St. John’s the Episcopal church, as a tutorial program for under-performing neighborhood children.

Mission Graduates (then called St. John’s Educational Thresholds Center) was first created by members of St. John’s the Episcopal church, as a tutorial program for under-performing neighborhood children. In late 2006, after an extensive assessment of its historic strengths as an organization, Mission Graduates strengthened its commitment to getting more kids from the neighborhood into college as a means to achieve economic equity and strengthen the fabric of the Mission community.

College education as an “end goal” is a theme that is woven through all of our academic enrichment programs serving low-income youth in the Mission District, the majority of whom are Latino. This population is greatly under-represented at four-year colleges due to a variety of factors, including little household expectation for going to college, a lack of information about financial aid, concerns about residency status, and over-taxed high school counselors. We work towards fulfilling our mission through a wide range of K-12 after-school, in-school and summer programs that reach over 1,100 children, youth and families each year.