Partners Refresh Technology
Posted on 09/15/2020
As part of its long-standing partnership with Cristo Rey Network, AXIS’s Kansas City office recently donated $20,000 to help purchase computers and other equipment for use in the classroom by Cristo Rey Kansas City students
AXIS has a four-year partnership with the Cristo Rey Network of 37 high schools across the United States. The Cristo Rey Network is the only network of high schools in the U.S. that integrates four years of rigorous college preparatory academics with four years of professional work experience through the Corporate Work Study Program. There are 13,000 students nationwide at Cristo Rey Network schools, of which 98% are students of color with limited financial means.
Through its partnership with Cristo Rey, AXIS provides work-study opportunities for students in its New York, Alpharetta and Kansas City offices. The students work one day a week in an AXIS office (or work virtual, as is the case currently due to the pandemic), gaining work experience in exchange for having their high school fees paid for by AXIS.
“We’re proud to support the excellent work of the Cristo Rey Network. As the COVID-19 pandemic has upended much of the education system throughout the United States, and required many schools to go to online or hybrid learning, we hope that this donation will help Cristo Rey Kansas City students continue to thrive no matter the circumstances,” said Tim Madderom, Head of US Insurance Operations and the executive sponsor of AXIS’s partnership with Cristo Rey. “Cristo Rey has an exceptional reputation with 100% of its students in their senior year being accepted to college – 87% of whom are the first in their family to set foot in a college classroom. Our partnership with Cristo Rey offer students a hand up rather than a hand-out.”
“AXIS and Cristo Rey Kansas City intersect at the corner of opportunity and experience. Over the past four years, AXIS has opened its Kansas City office to work-study students, enabling them to gain invaluable job skills and earn a portion of their own tuition,” said John O'Connor, President of Cristo Rey Kansas City. “This is a tremendous investment in our community's workforce development and in each student. As the world pivoted to working remotely and relying on technology for communication and collaboration, schools learned that 1-to-1 technology was the superhighway for student learning. Cristo Rey was humbled and grateful that AXIS, once again, partnered with us to refresh our student technology and ensure that each student had access to a device that was fully-functional.”