Spotlight on Service: John Yu

City Year Sacramento’s 66 AmeriCorps members have committed to a year of service to help improve educational outcomes in our seven partner schools. Through tutoring and mentorship, they are an additional touchpoint for over 4,000 hard-working students in Sacramento. Their drive and dedication are making an impact on our community every day. Join us each month as we profile our AmeriCorps members – we are inspired by their service and we think you will be too! 

Spotlight on Service: Meet John Yu

John is a proud AmeriCorps member serving on the Kaiser Permanente team at Fern Bacon Middle School in South Sacramento. He is right at home at Fern Bacon, as he was a student there over a decade ago. Having grown up in the neighborhood, he was excited to return after attending UC Santa Cruz to give back to his community. This year John is making an impact in an English Language Arts classroom working with students with a range of strengths and challenges. John brings a powerful perspective to this work. He connects and empathizes with his students who are English learners, as he spent his early years in China and is an English language learner himself. John enjoys serving alongside an outstanding partner teacher, Mr. Chris Matthei, who is a City Year alumnus and a great supporter of John’s growth as an educator. We celebrate John’s deep passion for promoting equity. He truly embodies the idea of generational change that we champion at City Year Sacramento.

“I joined City Year because I wanted to help students with resources I didn’t have when I was younger. I felt like the extra resource would have helped me figure out myself easier.”
– John Yu, City Year Sacramento ’20