Barbara Bass Bakar, former Chief Executive Officer for several major retail firms, founded the achieve program in 1997. Believing that education is the great equalizer in society and that low-income and minority youth were not being adequately served by the public school system, Mrs. Bakar began the program with four boys at Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco, and in 1999 added a girls’ program at Holy Names High School in Oakland. In 2006 achieve began a girls’ program at Mercy High School in San Francisco, which transitioned to Mercy Burlingame in 2020. In 2015, a program was added at St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda.
When the program began, Mrs. Bakar initially chose to remain anonymous. However, in the second year she realized that simply providing scholarship money was not producing success. She decided to get personally involved— very involved. She visited students’ homes so that she could better understand their lives outside of school, and met individually with students to learn about their hopes and dreams for the future. She, in essence, became a “second mom” to all of the achieve scholars.
Mrs. Bakar is constantly striving to expand and improve the program. After asking the first achieve graduates what additional services would have improved their academic success, she took their advice and added an after school program. Upon realizing that some achieve graduates were not staying in college or taking too long to graduate, an intensive college counseling component was added to the program. According to Mrs. Bakar, the program continues to be “a work in progress” and she is committed to continue making any changes needed to maximize the success of every student in the program.
After graduation, students remain part of the achieve Program and are invited to attend the annual alumni event. Mrs. Bakar continues to advise and support alumni through letters, e-mails and phone calls.