Justin Pasquariello
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Justin Pasquariello 2002 fellow
Bold Idea
Empower adopted and foster youth to flourish through mentoring and internship programs.
Organization
When eighteen-year-olds age out of foster care, sixty-six percent of them have not finished high school. Twenty-five percent will become homeless at some point in their lives. AFC Mentoring is one of the only programs that exclusively serves adopted and foster youth, and is among the few that seek to match these youths with adults who have shared experiences, when possible. AFC accomplishes its mission through three programs: AFCMentors, a one-to-one mentoring program which matches adult volunteer mentors with youth in care; TeamAFC, a group mentoring initiative that gives youth in care a sense of community, consistency, and positive interaction with adults and youth; and AFCInterns, an internship program that allows youth in care to gain professional skills and encourages personal growth and goal setting. AFC Mentoring serves youth ages 7 to 22 who have personal experiences in foster care, adoption, kinship, or residential care and who are from the Greater Boston area.
Biography
Justin Pasquariello was adopted at the age of nine years, after spending time living with his birth mother and time in foster care and kinship care. Recognizing the importance of many caring adult relationships in his life, Justin created AFC to bring more consistent relationships to other youth in care. Justin served as AFC’s first Executive Director, receiving recognition and support including the Boston Celtics Heroes Among Us Award, and the Bank of America Local Heroes Award. In 2007, Justin left the full-time ED role to pursue a concurrent MBA/ MPA at Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School; during his graduate studies he was a Reynolds, George, Goldsmith, and Rappaport Fellow. He is currently a Consultant at the nonprofit Bridgespan Group, a firm that helps nonprofit organizations achieve breakthrough results. Justin is the interim Board Chair at AFC and continues to serve as an AFC Mentor.
