[soft guitar music] [soft music] - Out of all the places I've lived and I've lived a lot of places around the country.

Bergen County feels the most like home.

After two failed marriages, I needed to be near a village.

It was time, that support system is huge.

As a single mom moving here in 1993 I remember being told that this was not the place to live as a single mother.

I don't think they were being disrespectful, they were just being honest that you can't afford to live here.

I definitely was discriminated against when I try to find apartments.

One because I was a single mom.

And then also because of my color.

So Bergen County is a fluent and resources are, I don't think there are dispersed evenly throughout the county.

So that definitely is an issue.

- Thank you.

- Oh, you're welcome.

- Take care.

Hollywood is expensive, it's a business.

Folks who don't have that access, can be money, it could be access to resources and network.

That's not really giving their kids real-world experience.

I was one of those parents.

The wealth is that distributed.

Someone who maybe has access to a major corporation or something more along the lines that the student is interested in, can get their kids those internships.

I started talking to folks at guidance and was like, Hey, you know, you have kids doing this.

And I said, you know, not a lot of kids are doing this kind of enrichment stuff.

So I said, well, let's work together.

So I took a job at Teaneck public schools on two different occasions.

It was very enlightening just to see things from another side, good and bad.

And I got to see the gaps.

I have a nephew and he went to this summer leadership program which was four weeks and it was incredible that that changed his whole outlook on everything.

He was there with wealthy, young people of color who were from around the world.

And they exposed him to, to things that he'd never even heard of and thought of.

And so it gave him a thrive.

It's like, oh wow, I can do this.

And he came home and said, how come other kids in my community are not doing the same thing?

You can't just, it's not okay for your kids to just be doing well.

- How are you doing queen?

Come over here.

- You have to worry about the other kids that are sitting on either side of them in the room.

What that means is you have to get more involved.

And so I took that to heart and I said, okay.

And that's what sparked Parent Matters.

- All right, who is interested in scholarships and free money and all that good stuff?

- The mission to empower and nurture parents to help their students thrive.

And you can also like move it over a little bit.

So I'd love for you guys, if you have your phone to scan so we can let you know about enrichment opportunities.

So that's our mission to expose every possible child on the planet and parent and nurture them and let them know that you can't really do this alone.

For me, it was really tough because I'm really just one of the climbs at the top of the empire state building and start yelling and say, Hey everybody, this is happening.

I just had a conversation with a parent yesterday who was just, just had no idea what her options were.

So those resources have to be front and center.

Parent Matters provides access to tutors, access to mentors, enrichment, and immersion programs, scholarships, internships; they'll work on building a resume or updating a resume, showing a young person what their resume should look like by the time they're applying to college and then exposing them to the hundreds of resources that we have, and mentors will go through the application process with them.

It kind of takes the pressure off the parent.

- Yeah, it was fun.

I got to see somebody get cut open.

It was crazy.

- So it was a medical program.

- They're really on top of their game.

I want to be like that too.

- Excellent, excellent.

It's important for young people to see themselves reflected in mentors and in folks that, you know, look like them.

If you don't see yourself in something, or if you can't imagine something, then you really can't start taking the steps to get there.

I saw how it impacted my children and I thought, this is oxygen that they need.

- Oh, that's when we were in that conference and then multiple people from the law school came out and talked to us about law.

- I've seen my kids' lives change and I've seen others.

And it's just so empowering.

And it just keeps me inspired to do more.

So lots of kids are in college now because they were exposed to something that they never even thought about.

These programs are around the nation.

The other one is interning at Facebook now.

The best parts of Bergen County.

Oh wow.

The diversity, I love it.

It reminds me of the way I was raised in New York city, having access to different foods and different cultures and different languages and different people.

You learn so much And then we are around people who are different from you.

You get to understand the world differently.

And that's so important.

That is one of the best things to me about Bergen County.

I just think it's important for folks to know that someone is always battling for us to have this lifestyle.

Someone who's always sitting at the table to create this lifestyle in the schools and all the amenities that we get to enjoy, and that we just need to encourage people to do the same, especially people of color to get involved in your local politics and your local school boards, we're involved in town council meetings.

And if you don't continue to have someone at the table fighting for that, then we could lose it.

- This is a job in itself.

Just open in the back.

- People are waiting to be asked.

Some people don't know.

Give them a personal invitation and kind of give them a plan of action.

But people who're willing, are ready to help and want to give back.

But the more I talk to people they're like, why are you doing this?

You know, why wouldn't I?

Doing what you love it doesn't even feel like work tho.

And when you start seeing goodness come from it, it just makes you, it motivates you to do more.

It just feels incredible.

It just feels really, really incredible just to be able to see the impact you can have on someone's life.

And that's what makes you keep going.