YEA Juntos

Central Carolina Community College is in partnership with NC State University and the North Carolina Extension Service in Lee County to facilitate the YEA: Advancing Equitable Agriscience Juntos Program at Lee County High School.

The NCSU Juntos program received a $7.8 million grant to improve science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) participation, persistence, and career readiness among Hispanic and Latino youth in the states of North Carolina and Washington. The grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the Youth Innovators Empowering Agriculture Across America program.

The grant funds a five-year project that draws from culturally responsive pedagogy, behavioral science theory, and evidence-based practice used in the Juntos program to create a STEM Agriculture Pathways model to serve students beyond secondary education. The project also includes the formation of the National Juntos Consortium to support a replicable, scalable program that improves Latino youth representation in postsecondary education programs and advances diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility work within the Land Grant University Extension System.

• The grant allows for 60 students to participate in the program on an annual basis. 
• Latinx students at Lee County High express interest in the program in order to join. 
• Students must be a student at Lee County High School and be of Latinx descent.

For more information on the program, contact Oscar Hernandez, program coordinator, at ohern032@cccc.edu or (919) 718-7299.