About SEEDS | Mission, Vision and Core Values | Statistics | Staff | Board of Trustees
New Jersey SEEDS was founded in 1992 when a small group of innovators confronted the profound lack of opportunity for low-income students in the state’s urban school districts.
Uniting the education, business and independent school sectors, they believed they could shatter conventional stereotypes and create an organization through which inner city students would thrive. Now celebrating its twentieth anniversary, New Jersey SEEDS is a privately funded, statewide, nonprofit organization committed to developing future leaders from the state’s least privileged communities. By providing access to exceptional educational opportunities, SEEDS programs create a viable path for students to achieve their full potential.
SEEDS delivers an extremely rigorous academic curriculum, inspiring cultural experiences and critical training in leadership skills followed by placement in some of the nation’s most competitive independent schools and colleges. SEEDS continues to guide its graduates throughout their school careers and beyond, and encourages its alumni to be ethical, engaged, responsible citizens who lead lives of contribution and give back to their communities.
Thought of by many as SEEDS’ “core” program, the Scholars Program, initiated at SEEDS’ founding in 1992, is the organization’s oldest effort and its largest. The first class of SEEDS Scholars graduated from the program in 1994.
In 2002, SEEDS introduced the Young Scholars Program to address the well-documented problem of the "fifth grade cliff." Today, students from the first class of graduates are now sophomores at colleges and universities across the nation.
Launched in 2007, the College Preparatory Program expanded the use of SEEDS' techniques to rapidly improve academic proficiency to students in underperforming public high schools, with the goal of increasing the number who aspire to, enter and graduate from competitive colleges.
"New Jersey SEEDS has had a tremendous impact on many aspects of my life. SEEDS not only helped open up opportunities for my education and career, but most importantly, helped shape my way of thinking and set a foundation for my desire to learn and to achieve. By attending the program with other young, diverse students, I learned to be open to others' perspectives, which has helped build my intellectual curiosity. When I think about all the achievements in my life, the opportunities that I have taken advantage of, and the interests and curiosities that I’ve developed, I always think about how this all stems from the learning and growth experience that I had with the SEEDS program at a very young age. New Jersey SEEDS set the foundation for me to explore my intellectual curiosities and to achieve my goals, and I am very thankful for that opportunity."