{"id":1497,"date":"2024-10-09T20:35:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T20:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worcester.edu\/magazine\/?p=1497"},"modified":"2024-10-30T17:47:56","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T17:47:56","slug":"sarah-baldiga-m-s-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worcester.edu\/magazine\/2024\/10\/09\/sarah-baldiga-m-s-09\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Baldiga, M.S. \u201909"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1535 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.worcester.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2024\/10\/9.-Sarah-Baldiga-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.worcester.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2024\/10\/9.-Sarah-Baldiga-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.worcester.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2024\/10\/9.-Sarah-Baldiga-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.worcester.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2024\/10\/9.-Sarah-Baldiga.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>MAJOR: Nonprofit Management<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>PROFESSIONAL: Co-Founder and Executive Director, Rise Above Foundation<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>VOLUNTEER: Co-facilitator, Lone Rangers Group, MetroWest Nonprofit Network; Board member and Chair, MetroWest Nonprofit Network; Committee Member, Haitian Ministry, St. Gabriel Church, Upton, Mass.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m passionate about ensuring that the most vulnerable in our community have equitable access to thrive. Fifteen years ago, I helped start Rise Above Foundation to support local youth in foster care. By providing youth with funds to participate in music lessons, team sports fees, dance lessons, school field trips, prom, camp, and more, Rise Above gives them opportunities that can boost their physical, mental, social, and academic well-being. Since the organization was started, we\u2019ve served more than 14,000 youth in our state who are experiencing foster care and distributed more than $3 million so that youth can participate in the same activities as their peers.<\/p>\n<p>The response we receive from youth, foster parents, social workers, and other advocates motivates me to strive to increase Rise Above\u2019s impact. We hear almost daily that our help made a difference. The degree program at Worcester State gave me a well-rounded knowledge base that was especially critical in starting and running Rise Above, and I was able to build a network of other nonprofit professionals in my fellow students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MAJOR: Nonprofit Management PROFESSIONAL: Co-Founder and Executive Director, Rise Above Foundation VOLUNTEER: Co-facilitator, Lone Rangers Group, MetroWest Nonprofit Network; Board member and Chair, MetroWest Nonprofit Network; Committee Member, Haitian Ministry, St. Gabriel Church, Upton, Mass. I\u2019m passionate about ensuring that the most vulnerable in our community have equitable access to thrive. Fifteen years ago, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7878,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-worcester-state-magazine-150th-anniversary"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sarah Baldiga, M.S. \u201909 | Worcester State University<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.worcester.edu\/magazine\/2024\/10\/09\/sarah-baldiga-m-s-09\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sarah Baldiga, M.S. \u201909 | Worcester State University\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"MAJOR: Nonprofit Management PROFESSIONAL: Co-Founder and Executive Director, Rise Above Foundation VOLUNTEER: Co-facilitator, Lone Rangers Group, MetroWest Nonprofit Network; Board member and Chair, MetroWest Nonprofit Network; Committee Member, Haitian Ministry, St. Gabriel Church, Upton, Mass. 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