Danielle Young
Youth Development Coordinator
Children are a vital part of our family-centered approach to community transformation. As our Youth Development Coordinator, Danny’s role is to support the work in one of our key focus areas: early education.
In the neighborhoods surrounding the Freedom Drive corridor, only 1 in 5 children moves into 4th grade reading proficiently. To transform that statistic and put more children on a path to college and career readiness, Danny will work with the children of the moms involved in our Moms Moving Forward program, providing them with valuable educational support and resources.
Danny has been part of the Charlotte community since 2003 and spent 16 years in early childhood education, working to close the educational gap while building strong relationships with families and caregivers. Her most recent position was with the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, where she worked as preschool coordinator. While in that role, she began contributing her time and efforts to Freedom Communities, helping the team run its remote learning site during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In that time, we saw children’s grades increase 45 percentage points — in part because of her commitment to looking beyond education and considering the whole child. That focus continues to define her work with us each and every day.
Why Freedom Communities?
“My favorite quote comes from Nelson Mandela, who said, ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’ I believe that, and I look forward to working with the families in the 28208 zip code to close the educational gap.”
Hometown
Flint, Michigan