In an effort to address the financial hardships that Peer Mentoring and Leadership (PLM) program students have faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, PeerForward and one of its donors joined together to create the PeerForward/Greenwald Leadership Scholarship fund with a donation of $50,000 – an unprecedented effort to provide PLM student mentees in need with up to $750 in emergency grants that will go into effect this coming summer semester.

Since 2019, Broward College has partnered with PeerForward to launch PLM, the first of its kind to increase retention and completion rates for our students. The nationally recognized PeerForward model harnesses the power of positive peer influence to drive more students to and through college.  PeerForward-trained Peer Leaders expand the capacity of student support systems and encourage students to seek out campus resources to overcome obstacles. By providing real solutions to student challenges, and measuring and supporting progress, Peer Leaders can ensure students graduate on time.

Using PeerForward’s Youth Activation and Coaching curriculum, Peer Leaders are current Broward College students or recent alums of 1 year. The program has a capacity of 52 peer leaders per year, so taking into consideration that there are returning peer leaders, that is a cumulative total of 110 peer leaders over 3 years. In addition to the 1,703 PLM student mentees who have been engaged in the formal mentoring and leadership program components, students and the Peer Leaders serve at Campus Drive-Thru Food Distributions, the Central Campus Food Pantry, and cross-departmental collaborations such as FAFSA training and Registration Drives to impact retention and enrollment efforts.