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Politics & Government

Local Resident Is One Of 100 Picked For Nationwide Program

From starting a local lending library to the Rockland Roundtable Initiative, Mathew has amassed a long list of achievements

 

Marvin Mathew of New City entered the honors program at RCC after graduation from Ramapo High School. It is clear that Marvin is not a man who is satisfied by improving himself; he aims to help and improve society in any way he can.

After graduating RCC with an honors degree in Humanities and Social Sciences, Mathewwent on to attend the University of Maryland. Along the way, without his knowledge, he was nominated for Opportunity Nation, a program that accepts only 100 people from across the country. After qualifying for the group of 500 and going through a fierce selection process, he was selected for the program.

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Opportunity Nation is a campaign to promote opportunity, social mobility, and access to the American Dream,” according to Opportunity Nation’s site. It has built a broad coalition of nearly 200 businesses, non-profits, educational institutions and military organizations to help create a shared, bipartisan plan to create better skills, better jobs, and better communities. Opportunity Nation “believes that the zip code you’re born into shouldn’t determine your destiny and when social mobility grinds to a halt, we are in grave danger of losing the best of America."

“Ramapo has a declining graduation rate of 12 percent over the last number of years but you can’t just go into Pearl River, who has a 99 percent graduation rate, and start talking about graduation problems. However, Pearl River has had an increasing problem with teen obesity,” said Mathew. “We really have to pick out the problem areas for each community and place our focus on them.”

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He’s also amassed a long list of achievements other than Opportunity Nation.

“Growing up my mom always told me that I should always help the people around me when I had the chance," said Mathew. “I took this to heart when I thought of Community.”

“I was lucky enough to work with (RCC President) Dr. Cliff Wood, a man who, like my mother, takes the word community very seriously and someone that enabled my story into the community. Rockland County is one large community and I'm glad that I can work with so many people to make my community better. Opportunity Nation gives me the tools and metrics to work with others like Dr. Wood to make a measurable difference. Rockland’s younger generations and beyond should be able to dream zealously and achieve big. I think it's our job to show them they can.”

Mathew’s group, Water Justice Alliance, was selected and presented at the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference in San Diego, CA last year.

“I've continued my relationship with the foundation as a Campus  Representative here at UMD,” he said. “At the Clinton Global Foundation Annual Meeting, I had the opportunity to speak about my work back in Rockland on community solutions with Ms. Madeline Albright, first female Secretary of State under President Clinton.”

Mathew was also RCC Student President last year and he organized a book drive with friends from Georgetown University and Dominican College to start a lending library at CAPROC, an anti-poverty agency in the heart of Spring Valley. They successfully donated more than 500 books and this year will be the second annual drive geared directly as solutions for poor literacy rates in Rockland.

“I'm excited for the next roundtable discussion and the book drive."

He’s also responsible for designing the Uplift program at RCC, designed for college students to return to local high schools and discuss how they overcame trials and tribulations in their lives and how they could relate to issues high schoolers are currently dealing with.

“The idea of uplift was to literally uplift them into a higher level of thinking so they would see that things could and eventually would change.”

“After I had given the (graduation) commencement address, a few young friends of mine approached me with a graduation card,” Mathew said. “It didn't have checks or money in it. Instead was messages from each of them. One read,”

"I'm really happy at what you've accomplished. When I
grow up and go to college I want to do it too."

“Reading this I was both overcome with joy and humbled as it reaffirmed the work I had only begun in Rockland in organizing round tables, programs, and eventually being nominated to a very selective group of people chosen to revitalize the most important American asset; the opportunity to Dream. Recieving that card helped me realize how imporant it is for young people like me to achieve success like nomination to Opportunity Nation. Younger people look up to us, these achievements help them realize they can do the same and better.”

More information and Contact

Rockland Roundtable Initiative

Books can be delivered to RCC SGA Office 3215 (from 9-5)

For more information on the book drive, people can email
RocklandBookDrive@gmail.com or Mathew at marvinmathew7@gmail.com
 at facebook.com/marvinmathew7

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