When a young person has a caring adult who knows them, believes in them, and is willing to walk alongside them throughout their adolescence, that relationship changes what feels possible for the future.
This summer, we were reminded of that in a particularly powerful way.
In early August, TJ, an Aspirations Incubator Program Director, reached out, urgently seeking help. She was working with a newly graduated student whose plans to attend the University of Southern Maine were falling apart. His financial aid package was not enough to make college possible, and with few options and little support at home, his path forward suddenly felt uncertain.
Because of the relationships built through the Aspirations Incubator network, RYI was able to help connect TJ with partners at the University of Southern Maine. Within days, those connections opened the door to the Promise Scholars Program, and a full four-year scholarship covering the student's tuition.
This fall, the student became the first in his family to attend college.
The scholarship was transformative. But it was the relationship and partnership infrastructure around him that helped make it possible.
Today, the Rural Youth Institute is working to make connections like this easier. Through the Aspirations Incubator, RYI brings together youth-serving organizations, schools, colleges, families, and community partners to build a stronger web of support around rural young people
For rural youth, those bridges matter. And RYI is working to build more of them.
In 2026, we turned momentum into action.
Because of the generosity and belief of this community, RYI has continued to grow across each of our four areas of work.
We expanded the Aspirations Incubator.
In 2026, we awarded grants to Roots + Wings at the Lubec Community Outreach Center, Oxford Hills NorthStar 4-H, and the Cobscook Institute’s Indigenous Teaching and Learning program. RYI is supporting these communities not simply to replicate the Aspirations Incubator, but to build the relationships, practices, and local infrastructure that allow the model to take root in each community.
We deepened our learning and research.
In partnership with the Data Innovation Project, we are tracking Aspirations Incubator students’ postsecondary journeys. RYI’s new report, Building Pathways Through Long-Term, Intentional Mentorship, is deepening our understanding of persistence and student experience, while our emerging partnership with UMaine’s College of Education and Human Development is building the foundation for longer-term research.
We invested in the people working directly with youth.
This year, RYI invested in strengthening the knowledge, skills, and practices of youth development professionals facilitating three concurrent learning experiences. Together, these trainings deepened practitioners’ capacity to build meaningful relationships with youth, support their agency and leadership, and put relationship-centered practices into action. We also advanced the frameworks and curriculum that will anchor RYI’s future statewide training and learning hub.
And we began finding our voice in the policy conversation.
RYI convened its first advocacy committee, strengthened policymaker relationships, and began elevating rural youth perspectives in statewide and national conversations. Our response to the Meta settlement brought this work to life, engaging the Attorney General’s office and media while mobilizing our network to bring youth voices into conversations about how settlement funds could support young people. These early efforts are building RYI’s capacity to elevate youth voice and advocate for the conditions rural youth need to thrive.
And we’re just getting started.
Our vision is to double the Aspirations Incubator network by 2030, reaching more rural communities across Maine while preserving the deep, relationship-centered practices that make the model powerful. At the same time, we are building RYI as a trusted source of research and knowledge about rural youth development and creating a statewide learning and training hub to equip the people and communities who make this work possible.
Together, these efforts will extend our reach far beyond the Aspirations Incubator network, strengthen the field of rural youth development, and build lasting capacity for change.
Will you help us build it?
A gift to RYI is an investment in the relationships, knowledge, resources, and systems rural communities need to ensure young people see a future for themselves—and know they belong in it. Your support today will help make that future possible for generations of rural youth.
