Copyright © 2026 Oakland Kids First
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OAKLAND KIDS FIRST 2025–2026 IMPACT REPORT
About Oakland Kids First
Oakland Kids First proudly develops youth leaders to imagine and build a future rooted in possibility and community power. For three decades, we’ve been supporting youth to navigate unjust conditions, partnering with youth to develop alternative approaches to meet community needs, and preparing youth to build power and transform systems to better serve Oaklanders. Explore the impact of our work during the 2025-2026 school year and reflections on 30 years of impact in the local Oakland community below.
From Our Executive Director
As I thought about writing this year’s letter, my brain was quickly flooded by memories and musings on the past 30 years and hopes for the next 30.
I have been around Oakland Kids First since I was a kid myself and have been on staff for 18 years now so I have no shortage of thoughts, but then I realized that much of what I want to say is already presented in our new 30th Anniversary video.
So this year, instead of just sharing my reflections, I invite you to watch students and staff past and present share what makes OKF so special to them.
The video (see below) touches on the community coalition that launched the Kids First! Initiative back in 1996, and explores how our work with youth today is designed to imagine and build a better tomorrow for all of us.
Just one quick note. I know we are living through dark times, globally and locally, that can easily drive us to ignorance, individualism, or despair.
I get it and am asking you to join with your community to rise to the occasion instead.
Throughout the country we are watching so many communities fight back, including right here in Oakland as people show up to protect their neighbors, provide resources for those who need them most, and organize to challenge oppressive policies and worsening conditions.
OKF’s student organizers responded to the moment this spring by engaging nearly 1,500 youth across the city on the issues that are most impacting their lives today.
Their goal is to ensure that the organizing campaigns they take on are able to improve community conditions and build youth power. History doesn’t just happen, it is made by the people so we must be the visionaries and torchbearers of a better world.
I’ll sign off with a quiet statement of hope from Arundhati Roy:“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
– Lukas Brekke-Miesner –
30 Years of Youth Power
Since 1996, Oakland Kids First has cultivated youth leaders and built youth power so Oakland students are prepared to lead campaigns, shape policy, and improve their school communities.
On June 6, we gathered with youth, families, school partners, board members, staff, and supporters for Looking Back, Moving Forward: Oakland Kids First’s 2026 Celebration. Together, we celebrated youth accomplishments, honored graduating seniors, and kicked off our 30th anniversary year.
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Students Engaged
Over 20,000 OUSD High School students have participated in OKF’s youth leadership development and organizer training programs, care management, peer mentor training, academic navigation workshops, and after school college, career and community readiness programs and events.
0
+
Youth Impacted
From winning a city budget set aside to fund children and youth services to winning voting rights for 16 and 17-year olds OUSD School Board Elections (and many campaigns in between), OKF has used organizing to improve material conditions for hundreds of thousands of Oakland youth.
$
0
Million
Distributed to Youth
Through stipends, internships, participant support, and relief fund assistance, OKF has put $3,027,305 directly in the pockets of young people in 30 years, expanding economic opportunity and improving financial literacy for Oakland Youth.
2025–2026 Impact Across Oakland
The 2025–2026 school year offers a glimpse into the impact young people are having as they lead positive change in their schools and communities at Castlemont, Fremont, Oakland High, Oakland Tech, and Skyline high schools. Students were enrolled in Oakland Kids First’s organizing programs and community school initiatives.
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Youth in grades 9–12 participated in OKF programs
0
People engaged in community-building events
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Young people participated in surveys and focus groups informing youth organizing campaigns
5 OUSD High Schools
OKF provided after-school programs at Castlemont, Fremont, Oakland High, Oakland Tech, and Skyline. Students were enrolled in Oakland Kids First’s organizing programs and community school initiatives.
- Castlemont Community School Initiatives
- Knight Time After School Program
- Stipended CastleWorks and community based internships
- Farm and Garden
- Tutoring
- Castle Cares- care management and Re-igKnight Program
- Community events
- Knight Initiation 9th Grade Bridge orientation for incoming 9th graders
- REAL HARD youth leadership and organizing chapter
- Knight Time After School Program
- REAL HARD youth leadership and organizing chapter
- Co-facilitation of leadership class
- School store management
- Conducted research through a field trip to the Oakland Museum of CA
- Advocated for improved restroom conditions by meeting with the administration and distributing toilet paper, soap, and pads.
- REAL HARD youth leadership and organizing chapter
- Oakland High organizers tabled during Unity Day 2026
- Handed out hand sanitizer to new members to address lack of bathroom cleanliness in alignment with student-led organizing campaign.
- REAL HARD youth leadership and organizing chapter
- REAL HARD youth leadership and organizing chapter
- 2 core leaders demonstrated leadership building relationships and connections with adults by presenting to their PTSA. They discussed the success of their bathroom campaign, as well as the problems that still exist. They asked parents to sign up to help support the campaign, and made calls to the school to ensure bathrooms remained unlocked and accessible.
Average Program Experience Rating
0
/5
TOP
Skills Gained
Communication
Strengthened skills to express ideas, listen, and communicate with others.
Relationship-Building
Built stronger connections with peers, adults, and community members.
Team Work
Gained experience working with a team, group, or coalition toward shared goals.
Across all OKF programs, participants strongly agreed or agreed that:
2025–2026 Strategies
STRATEGY 1: Build Youth Power Through Student Organizing
We develop youth leaders through campus-based REAL HARD chapters, our citywide Youth Organizing Council, and the Summer Organizing Institute, which incorporate political education, youth organizer training, basebuilding, campaign development, and powerbuilding.
STRATEGY 2: Prepare Youth for Life After High School
As the lead agency at Castlemont High School, Oakland Kids First providesd East Oakland students with community school programs including leadership development, academic support, care management, work-based learning, and a variety of enrichment programs.
STRATEGY 3: Institutionalize Youth Voting
Oakland Kids First anchors the Oakland Youth Vote Coalition to strengthen youth voting implementation and civic engagement with community and governmental partners so young people can access voting and use it to propel systemic change that centers students.
Strategy 1
Our Strategies in Action
Strategy 1 — Build Youth Power Through Student Organizing
Oakland Kids First developed 155 youth leaders through REAL HARD after-school organizing chapters at five OUSD high schools, a cross-campus Youth Organizing Council, and a Summer Organizing Institute. These programs incorporated community building, political education, research, youth organizer training, base building, and campaign development so student organizers can develop to improve conditions for students across OUSD.
Internally, we overhauled our leadership ladder and improved our development of youth leaders to help them grow as people and organizers. During the 25-26 school year, youth organizers concluded their campaigns organizing for improved bathroom conditions and began researching issues for their new Youth Justice Platform.
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Youth Engaged in Surveys and Focus Groups
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Youth Leaders Engaged
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Core Leaders
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Youth Organizing Council Representatives
Affordability
Housing
Life Preparation
Safety
Youth Justice Platform Priorities
Through a citywide survey and focus groups, youth organizers gathered input from 1,431 middle school, high school, and transitional-aged youth to identify the issues that are having the most detrimental impacts on Oakland youth today.
The findings are key to the development of OKF’s new Youth Justice Platform, which will launch soon and shape their future organizing priorities. Survey data has preliminarily identified affordability, housing, safety, and inadequate preparation for life after high school as key issues affecting their peers but they are continuing to deepen their understanding of those issues.
From Research to Action
Summer Organizing Institute participants worked across schools to cultivate community, learn more about organizing, and explore the issues that surfaced in their spring research. For example, they met with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and mobilized to one of their actions to learn about housing justice organizing and explore housing access and affordability as a possible future campaign focus.
Through these experiences, youth organizers built allyship with people directly impacted by the housing crisis and stepped into their power to make change through direct action. They also began to lay the foundation for their leadership roles in their campus-based REAL HARD chapters.
Program surveys were distributed in Dec, May and again in June with 85 organizers responding agreed with the statements:
Participating this semester helped me grow more confident in sharing my ideas. At first I was hesitant, but over time I got more comfortable speaking up and asking questions.
It has helped develop and obtain several new skills such as presentation skills, leadership skills, and analytical skills. Additionally, I was able to make and create better connections with peers in this program.
Strategy 2 — Prepare Youth for Life After High School
Skills, Support & Opportunity
As the lead agency at Castlemont High School, Oakland Kids First provided 575 East Oakland students with community school support programs including: leadership development, academic support, one-on-one care management, college visits, work-based learning internships, and a variety of enrichment opportunities through Knight Time After School Programs and Castle Cares place-based supports.
Students helped identify the program topics that interested them, and OKF partnered with community organizations and local businesses to provide the type of workforce readiness and school success opportunities students requested.
575 East Oakland Students Served
% Castlemont Students engaged in OKF Programs
73%
Work-Based Learning
0
CastleWorks Internship Participants
0
Community-Based Internship Participants
Academic & Student Support
0
Students Received Academic Tutoring
0
Students Received Care Management
College, Career & Community
0
Students Attended College Visits
0
Career Fair Participants
Growing at Castlemont
This year, OKF expanded the Castlemont Farm & Garden with added staff capacity, monthly work days, vertical farming stations, and youth-led research into food forests, biodiversity, and irrigation.
Through this work, students developed urban agriculture and farming skills while helping support the school community with access to healthy produce, and learning more about nutrition and sustainable growing practices.
Strategy 3 — Institutionalize Youth Voting
Oakland Kids First anchors the Oakland Youth Vote Coalition alongside AYPAL, the Oakland Youth Commission, and OUSD’s All City Council student union. Our goal is to strengthen civic engagement and implementation of youth voting, so young people can access voting and use it to propel systemic change that centers students.
This past year, we developed and released critical resources to strengthen youth voting, while regularly meeting with governmental partners to improve youth voting in the 2026 election.
Sharing Expertise
At the first ever national Vote 16 convening at UCLA, former Oakland Kids First student organizers and current UCLA students, Linh Le and Sam Adeyeye spoke about their experience organizing to pass and implement Measure QQ.
Their panel and keynote address were well received and we used the occasion to release our Youth Vote Toolkit – a resource that draws upon our campaign win to inform and guide other organizers interested in youth voting. We have since distributed many copies to interested organizers across the country.
Improving Implementation
We wrote and released an extensive report evaluating the implementation of the first ever youth vote election in Oakland in 2024. It details what worked, what didn’t, and what improvements we recommend to strengthen youth vote implementation across all relevant layers of government and bureaucracy. It has been a valuable resource to ground discussions with elected officials and other stakeholders and is serving as a blueprint for future efforts to institutionalize youth voting. One win that has emerged from this advocacy is that youth voters will be able to register and vote in person at all county vote centers this election ensuring parity with adult voters.
Convening Partners
We regularly meet with The Registrar of Voters, Alameda County Office of Education, Oakland Unified School District, Alameda County Elections Commission, and others to advocate for system improvements that ensure youth voting for 2026 goes off smoother than it did in 2024. This approach has resulted in more coordinated RoV presence at OUSD high schools, more buy-in from district leaders, and wider adoption of our Civic Engagement Curriculum by teachers, which has been our most effective means of pre-registering youth to vote. We are working to continue sharpening the RoV’s execution of youth vote elections and deepening robust civic education in OUSD so that implementation isn’t dependent on the Oakland Youth Vote coalition in perpetuity.
Building Youth Voting Beyond Oakland
When we attended the Vote 16 national convening in LA, it became clear that there was lots of interest in youth voting across California. Since then, we have launched a state-wide alliance in collaboration with Vote 16 USA to help support youth vote campaigns throughout the state. We are also an integral part of an evergrowing Alameda County Vote 16 alliance, since there are active and upstart campaigns in Alameda, Fremont, and other cities, an implementation push for Albany’s Measure V, and ongoing improvement efforts in Oakland and Berkeley. We also meet and share our Toolkit, Evaluation Report, and Civic Engagement Curriculum with organizers around the country who are interested in cultivating youth voting power in other regions.
RESOURCES SHARED
Building from the 2025 youth vote evaluation, OKF developed and shared practical tools to support youth voting implementation, including a policy toolkit and updated civic engagement curriculum.
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Youth Leaders
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Youth Vote Evaluation Report Downloads
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Youth Vote Policy Toolkit Downloads
0
Civic Engagement Curriculum Downloads
OYV Campaign Win
Secured in-person voting for youth in 2026 elections
Strategy 3 — Institutionalize Youth Voting
Oakland Kids First anchors the Oakland Youth Vote Coalition alongside AYPAL, the Oakland Youth Commission, and OUSD’s All City Council student union. Our goal is to strengthen civic engagement and implementation of youth voting, so young people can access voting and use it to propel systemic change that centers students.
This past year, we developed and released critical resources to strengthen youth voting, while regularly meeting with governmental partners to improve youth voting in the 2026 election.
Sharing Expertise
At the first ever national Vote 16 convening at UCLA, former Oakland Kids First student organizers and current UCLA students, Linh Le and Sam Adeyeye spoke about their experience organizing to pass and implement Measure QQ.
Their panel and keynote address were well received and we used the occasion to release our Youth Vote Toolkit – a resource that draws upon our campaign win to inform and guide other organizers interested in youth voting. We have since distributed many copies to interested organizers across the country.
Improving Implementation
We wrote and released an extensive report evaluating the implementation of the first ever youth vote election in Oakland in 2024. It details what worked, what didn’t, and what improvements we recommend to strengthen youth vote implementation across all relevant layers of government and bureaucracy.
It has been a valuable resource to ground discussions with elected officials and other stakeholders and is serving as a blueprint for future efforts to institutionalize youth voting.
One huge win that has emerged from this advocacy is the announcement from the Registrar of Voters that youth voters will be able to register and vote in person at all county vote centers this election. Last election, youth were only able to vote by mail, but this announcement ensures parity with adult voters.
Convening Partners
When we attended the Vote 16 national convening in LA, the seed was planted to start a California alliance of active and beginning youth vote campaigns around the state. Since then, we have launched that state-wide alliance in addition to an Alameda County Vote 16 alliance, since our struggles for implementation share a municipal authority.
We regularly meet with The Registrar of Voters, Alameda County of Education, Oakland Unified School District, and others to ensure youth voting for 2026 goes off smoother than it did in 2024.
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Youth Leaders
Fourteen youth leaders from Oakland Youth Vote coalition organizations participated in a Core Leaders Committee co-facilitated by OKF staff to support youth vote implementation.
Resources Shared
Building from the 2025 youth vote evaluation, OKF developed and shared practical tools to support youth voting implementation, including a policy toolkit and updated civic engagement curriculum.
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Youth Vote Evaluation Report Downloads
0
Youth Vote Policy Toolkit Downloads
0
Civic Engagement Curriculum Downloads
Building Youth Voting Beyond Oakland
OKF regularly met with the Registrar of Voters and organizers leading youth vote campaigns and implementation efforts across Alameda County, drawing from lessons and best practices identified through Oakland’s youth vote work.
OKF also worked with Vote16 to help form a California coalition, support the national youth voting alliance, and connect with cities across the Bay Area, Alameda County, and beyond working to advance youth voting.
Partner Organizations
OKF initiatives are made possible through the partnership of many on-campus resources and off-campus community based organizations. The full list of partners in 2025-26 included:
- ANOVA volunteers from UC Berkeley- computer programming and coding
- Civic Design Studio and the Crucible-
- FabLab
- Clínica de la Raza- Grupo de Jóvenes
- Elevate- Choir
- EOYDC – internships
- Highland Hospital- HEAL Program
- IKUNA
- Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA)- Knight Painters community arts
- Oakland Athletic League (OAL) – Sports Ambassador Internship
- OUSD’s Restorative Justice (RJ) office and
- ECCCO program
- Peer Health Institute
- Soccer Without Borders
- Sankofa- co-manage the farm, garden and orchard
- WeLo We Lead Ours (WELO) high school mentoring for middle school youth
- Youth Alive – Teens on Target
- Youth Beats – Music Production
- Youth Uprising (YU) – Internships
- Youth Wellness Advisory Board (YWAB) with
- Children’s Hospital Oakland (CHO) – Internships
- OUSD’s Expanded Learning Programs Office, All City Council Student Union, and election technologist
- OEA teachers’ union
- School sites: principals, teachers and linked learning academy pathway leads, School Site Councils (SSC), Coordination of Services Teams (COST), Community Schools Managers, Care Managers, attendance team, and school culture/climate committees.
- Teachers who facilitate Knight Success activities at Castlemont- Fashion Design, Music, and Wiser’s Science World
- BACR at Oakland Tech and Fremont high schools
- EBAYC at Oakland High School
- Youth Together at Skyline
Financial Overview
2025-26 Financials
New Revenue:
$2,678,770
Carried Forward:
$774,789
Expenses:
$2,723,698
Breakdown of FY 25-26 Revenue
Breakdown of FY 25-26 Expenses
25-26 Funders/Donors
- Bay Area Community Resources
- City of Oakland- Oakland Fund for Children and Youth (OFCY) and ReCAST REST fund
- The California Endowment (TCE)
- Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF)
- Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund
- Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO)
- Golden State Community Foundation, and both the Golden State Warriors and
- Valkyries teams for donations
- #HalfMyDAF
- Hellman Foundation Fund
- Jeweld Consulting’s 2026 Project-Based
- Capacity Development Program, funded by the Alameda County Public Health Department
- Nordstrom Cares Community Grant
- Oakland Housing Authority
- The Oakland Community Alliance
- Oakland Promise Oakland Children’s Initiative
- Oakland Public Education Fund
- Oakland Unified School District
- Promise Neighborhoods Department of Education Grant
- Radical Imagination Family
- Foundation (RIFF)
- Raising Cane’s
- Rise East
- Stupski Foundation
- The Leaders Trust (TLT), a fund of Tides
- Center, Flexible Leadership Award
- UC SAREP- Sustainable Agriculture and
- Food Systems Small Grants Program
- W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation
- Walter & Elise Haas Sr. Endeavor Fund
- Youth Leadership Institute (YLI)
- Youth Organize! California – Northern California Grant Makers: Youth Power Fund
- Zoom Cares donated licences
To all of the individuals who donated, volunteered and attended Oakland Kids First events – thank you! Your generosity helped OKF achieve our goals to serve more Oakland students and improve educational equity for the Oakland community.
Oakland Kids First is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt nonprofit
EIN 01-0594835
