September 18, 2026

Aloysia “AJ” Jean is ready to start a new chapter in her life! After over a decade of service and commitment to our organization, she is about to embark on a new adventure with the DC College Access Program. Saying goodbye is never easy, but we are incredibly proud of AJ’s growth, and we are excited to see her thrive in her new role.  

In 2011, a 17-year-old AJ arrived on the campus of Yale University for her PeerForward Workshop. In the years that followed, she would continue being connected to the organization before ultimately joining the team as a full-time staff member in 2016. In her 10 years of employment, she held a number of roles in multiple different departments. She even became a Certified Coach as a member of the 6 Gods Coaching Cohort. She sat down with the rest of the marketing team to discuss her time at PeerForward and what is next for her: 

You have been a full-time staff member since 2016. Can you walk us through your PeerForward timeline and the different positions you held during your decade with the organization? 

My first role was on the innovation team as a volunteer and alumni engagement coordinator. That role was only specific to one program that PeerForward was piloting at the time: First Year Forward. It was a really cool and innovative program centered around connecting students through peer-to-peer mentorship with someone who’s from their community. The idea was that these “near peers,” somebody who is also in college, would just send out casual reminders and deadlines via text. That program lasted all the way through 2018. So, from 2016 to 2018, I primarily worked on that. By the time 2019 rolled around, my role got bumped up from volunteer and alumni engagement to communications engagement specialist. That’s when I switched teams from being on the innovation team to now being on the marketing team. From then on, my career with PeerForward kicked into second gear. I was no longer just making emails and putting out communications for this one niche project, I was actually working with communication material for the entire organization. This was a huge leap for me.  

I was in a whirlwind of figuring out everything that had to do with digital marketing strategy, digital communications, and communications in general for a nonprofit under that role of communications engagement specialist. After the addition of a new member to the marketing team in December of 2022, I had the opportunity to grow in that role and really figure out things for myself. That’s where I saw the shift from community engagement specialist to digital marketing manager. It felt like a time where I was just giving a lot of independence, too. I’d already figured out, with the help of others like Reagan Walker and Julie Cipriani, what was needed communications wise for PeerForward. It was time to come up with a strategy of how we would keep that going. 

I could feel the literal growth within myself at that time. I got to work on and develop a lot of creative projects. A great example of that was me coming up with a social media curriculum and advocating for a full social media session at Workshops. We had been doing it since about 2018, but the time we were given was so limited that the students weren’t able to accomplish much. I felt like taking my hand at writing curriculum and figuring out what was going to be most important to keep our strategy going. I focused on putting the power back into the Peer Leaders’ hands through informing them on what kind of content they should focus their efforts on.  

From 2023 onward, I was really trying to gain experience, take up space, and create new opportunities wherever I could. I introduced the concept of Social Media Team of the Year so that I could not only develop curriculum for Peer Leaders but award them for the great work that they were doing as well. I was also able to create job opportunities through the marketing internship and the associateship. 

To have all these different roles and experience all these different things was definitely my favorite part of going through this whole journey with PeerForward. 10 years is a long time when you think about it. But, when you consider each role that I had, it makes sense why I was with the organization for a decade. I basically experienced three metamorphoses while I’ve been here. I’ve been able to grow into roles and grow into new projects. Now, it’s finally the time for me to branch out and take on a totally new project. 

What has been the most meaningful part of your work with PeerForward?

I think one of the most meaningful things that can happen is just creating relationships with people and watching them grow and evolve. When you see the same people year over year during summer Workshops, you grow to care for them. It is so exciting to hear about them finding success and reaching milestones that they wanted to reach. Not only is it something where you’re very happy to see it, but it really does encourage you to keep ambition for yourself as well. It makes you think, “Wow, that’s so cool and they did that, maybe I can do it too.” That feeling always reminded me of what it is like to be a Peer Leader. Being constantly surrounded by community, including my coaching cohort 6 Gods, is so meaningful. I’ve built so many close relationships in my time here. 

The bonds I built with the adult members of our PeerForward family weren’t the only ones that touched my heart. Relationship building with Peer Leaders themselves, being able to watch them grow from their Workshop experience was a beautiful thing. Seeing young people take up space, growing their leadership abilities, and finding their voice is so meaningful. It really is one of the biggest pools of inspiration that you can pull from, and it reminds you to keep your ambition. That’s the most rewarding thing about this work, being able to spend so many years with so many incredible people and have them continually inspire me to want more for myself no matter what that is. 

Tell us about your favorite PeerForward memory. 

I have so many fond memories of my decade with PeerForward, but would say my favorite memory is the Daemen College Workshop. I say that because it was the first time my coaching cohort, 6 Gods, had the opportunity to coach together. It was so much fun to be able to work with these individuals that I had trained and grown with. 

That was also the Workshop where I saw what that payoff looks like so many years down the line. I saw Alumni Support Team members and volunteers that I had known during their time as Peer Leaders stepping up to give back. It was awesome to see that they still wanted to be involved in our mission.  

What is the next step in your professional journey? Where are you headed next?  

After I got certified as a PeerForward Coach, I followed up by doing a fellowship with the Surge Institute. That was how I learned of their impact in DC. One thing became abundantly clear to me, there was an issue in the community that I called home. Through my work with PeerForward I felt like I was serving students, but not necessarily the students in my community. 

Over the past few years, I began noticing news coverage that I felt was actively demonizing the youth of Washington DC and making them out to be something that they weren’t. I live, work, and am surrounded by so many intelligent students and youth that don’t deserve this reputation. This made me feel very connected to the idea that I really wanted to work with students in my community specifically. 

The next step in my journey is to, of course, continue consulting with small nonprofits by helping them develop a marketing plan and good content strategy that is not only sustainable, but impactful for local communities. These nonprofits do so much work to serve their communities, and I plan to help them get the recognition they deserve. This October, I will present at that National College Attainment Network Conference on how to develop a social media strategy on a shoestring budget. 

Alongside that, I will be working for the students of Washington DC at DC College Access Program, also known as DC CAP. It’s a scholar-based cohort that connects the students of Washington DC to a college or a university where they will then be able to enjoy going to school for little to no cost. There I will work on their digital communication strategy to ensure that the students of Washington DC continue to get opportunities to help them access college, thrive, and earn postsecondary degrees. I’m really excited to take on this challenge because it requires connecting with more people from my local community. Currently, DC CAP serves about 

120 students, and they have a 2050 moonshot goal to increase their college degree attainment for students under 25 to 80%. The thought that my work will be able to help in any small way with that makes me so happy. It makes me feel like I’m living in my purpose. It makes me feel like I know what my why is, which is something that I learned from PeerForward.  

What parting message would you like to share with your PeerForward family?  

It’s going to sound so corny, but the best part of being a Peer Leader is getting a Peer Leader team. The truth is that we never stop being Peer Leaders. Our team just gets bigger and what we call ourselves might change.  

There are some people in this organization who literally, by way of just being themselves, changed the way that I thought about life and what I believed was possible. It’s very, very rare to build a community this strong. The relationships I’ve found during my time with PeerForward have been some of the biggest gifts I’ve been given in this life. Every moment has felt very, very precious, even when things got hard. All that pressure has turned me into a diamond. I’m about to go out there and shine, and I have so many Peer Leaders, Alumni, volunteers, and staff members to thank for that. I have PeerForward to thank for that.