Friends, family and faculty came out to Jesse Owens Park in Bedford-Stuyvesant to celebrate the 2022 graduating class of Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy – an all-girls charter school that has been working with young women to transform them into leaders since 2017.

Faculty had the opportunity to call up individual students and announce what college they’ll be attending in the fall, and the students received gift bags with their respective college’s paraphernalia.

Thanks to the fundraising efforts of the school, families of the students did not pay for these festivities. On June 10, Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy will be throwing their students a college shower – like a baby shower, but for students on their way to college.