Leidra McQueen is the executive director of Beacon of Hope, a Lynchburg nonprofit that launched in 2011. During her ten years at the nonprofit, she has served as deputy director, director of the Office of College and Career Success, and the Future Center director at her alma mater, Heritage High School.

Laura Hamilton is the founding executive director of Beacon of Hope. She is currently serving in a consultatory phase for Beacon. Over the course of her career, she has engaged in policy work, nonprofit leadership, strategic consulting, and fundraising.

Beacon of Hope’s first GO Virginia project, Future Centers Expansion, focused on expanding the nonprofit’s Future Centers model to Amherst County and Altavista. Future Centers are privately funded spaces in Lynchburg City high schools that work in partnership with school counseling, administrators, the local economic development community, and local post-secondary providers to develop a seamless talent pipeline.

Beacon of Hope’s second GO Virginia project is called the Career Acceleration Program. Through this project, Beacon of Hope is continuing to engage with high school students, with a focus on connecting them to the workforce through a summer internship program. The project is also focusing on individuals who have paused their educational journeys as well as two-generation households, where parent and children are prime age workers.

1. What led you to want to assist students in finding their future careers?

LH: Beacon of Hope is special because it is so grassroots driven. What drives me is not only being able to contribute to the revitalization of our public schools and our city in general, but also being able to provide opportunities that aren’t available other places. There are so many challenges in public education. If we can help close some of those gaps, it's a day well spent.

LM: I worked for UVA’s Virginia College Advising Corps (VCAC), which got me interested in this work. I was recruited for Teach for America, and I loved the concept, but being a teacher was not for me. VCAC was the same conceptually as Teach for America, but specifically focused on career advising and coaching. I've been in this space ever since. When I was working with UVA in Martinsville, I remember calling my mom and saying I would love to do this type of work in Lynchburg at Heritage High School. And as I was having that conversation, Laura and team were working behind the scenes to get Beacon of Hope off the ground. I love seeing students find their passion and their joy, and it makes this work easy.

2. Since working at Beacon of Hope, is there a specific moment or memory that stands out to you?

LM: There's so many. I think Laura and I would both agree that the launch of our Stay Close, Go Far Scholarship program, our promise to Lynchburg City School students, was a really special moment.

We made that announcement in 2018 for the class of 2019. We announced to a room full of students that there was a scholarship available regardless of need and regardless of merit – the scholarship was for literally every student sitting in that audience. It was memorable.

But we've done so many things. We’ve started the Lynchburg Beacon of Hope’s Summer Internship Program. This is the third summer that we've been running it, and it gives students real world experience and connects businesses to a pipeline of local talent.

LH: We have a student who literally walked here from El Salvador when he was 11 years old, and he is now 22. I can remember the moment that he was awarded a full-ride scholarship for the Aviation Maintenance Technician Program at Liberty University. He worked really hard. Reading airline manuals in a language that isn’t your own has got to be incredibly difficult. But he made it through and is now working for Piedmont Airlines as an aircraft maintenance technician and thriving. We have 2000 of those kinds of moments.

3. What impact have your GOVA projects had on Lynchburg and the surrounding area, and what goals do you have for the future?

LM: This GO Virginia partnership has allowed us to expand our reach and influence in positive ways. For this current project, it's yet to be determined, but what we're seeing is we’re making small waves by providing hope for students and encouraging them in their educational journeys. We want to continue being able to share our experience and knowledge with other communities across the commonwealth to hopefully expedite their process, shorten the learning curve, and help them get programs off the ground quickly so they can better serve their students.

4. What do you like most about being a GO Virginia grantee?

LH: We love GO Virginia. We can't say it enough. The GO Virginia grant process makes you think differently about who you are and what you want to accomplish. The process gave us the fuel to work with populations we otherwise might not have and has broadened our horizons in terms of what we can do.

5. What is your favorite part of living in Lynchburg?

LM: Lynchburg gave me a home. I traveled a lot growing up and didn't anticipate being in Lynchburg beyond high school. But however many years later, my family is still here, and I've gone away and come back. Lynchburg is such a giving and philanthropic community, and something like Beacon of Hope could only thrive in this type of environment. There are so many good people. It's not the biggest area to exist in, but it gives you what you need. If you don't have a healthy, strong community, and you don't have something to seek after, then you don't want to fight for something better. But the community here is so good that it's worth what's being built here.

LH: I agree with that 1000%. Also, I think it's really special that we get to spend a lot of time with the students we serve. The relationships are there. It's not that we're serving this faceless population of kids. We know these kids; we know their families. When we began working with the National College Promise in Washington D.C., they asked us how we identified students to speak at our events or to participate in our live speaker event series. We said we have a two-page list of kids who are eager to be our next speakers. This isn’t anonymous work; we see it every day.

6. Tell me more about your live speaker event series!

LH: This series is called HopeX, and it’s a nonprofit fundraiser we developed. We just finished our third year of it in March. We integrate adult speakers with our students. The adults do a 12-15-minute talk, and our young people do a five to seven-minute talk. Previous themes speakers have based their talks around include ‘The Power of Education to Transform Lives,’ ‘The Power in Finding Your Why’, and ‘The Exponential Power of Connection.’

7. What hobby would you dive into if time and money weren’t an issue?

LM: The first thing that that came to my mind was boating. My grandfather used to live in Annapolis, and my brother and I would go out on the boat with him in the summertime.

LH: I would travel more. The books I read inspire the places I want to go, and the latest trip I was looking at was India. I would love to travel there.