Purpose Prize

Marc Freedman Portrait

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Lasting Impact

Lasting Impact

CoGenerate Co-CEO Marc Freedman’s most recent book, How to Live Forever, was published by Hachette/Public Affairs in 2018, generating a lot of great attention. And it’s not over yet! Every week, the New York Times Sunday Opinion section includes a print-only feature...

Check Out Our Signature Event On Cogenerational Activism!

Check Out Our Signature Event On Cogenerational Activism!

On May 22, more than 1,100 people registered to learn more about the important cogenerational work our 2023 Innovation Fellows are doing. These 15 leaders are bringing generations together to solve problems and bridge divides. And each one has a unique and inspiring...

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Sister Eileen McNerney

Taller San Jose
Purpose Prize Fellow 2008

Helping high-risk youth restructure their lives, finish school, and develop marketable skills.

In 1992, Sister Eileen McNerney was living with three other nuns in gang-ridden Santa Ana, CA. One night she heard gunshots and then a mother crying over the body of her son, the second child she had lost to gang violence. McNerney resolved then and there to find a way to stem the tide of youth violence in a poor immigrant neighborhood plagued by a 50 percent high school dropout rate. McNerney decided the biggest obstacle to young people’s success was failure to secure and hold jobs. In 1995, at age 56, she launched Taller San Jose (St. Joseph’s Workshop) to offer training, counseling, legal help and job placement to high-risk young adults so they can restructure their lives, finish high school and develop marketable skills. More than 4,000 Santa Ana area young people have gone through Taller San Jose’s office skills academy, medical careers program or residential construction program, using support services such as mentoring, legal assistance, and job placement. Of graduates who have previously been incarcerated, 92 percent have not been re-arrested. 86 percent have moved on to full-time employment or community college. “I realized that I had had many privileges in my life and that the lives of these young people were certainly as important to them as my life had been to me. I really couldn’t bear to live there and be passive to the situation.”