Connecting business and community leaders to BPS students

The mission of the Big Cheese Initiative is to connect BPS students with city and community leaders through a one-time classroom visit. The leaders (Big Cheeses) talk with students about the professional paths they’ve chosen and share insight and information about their careers. Boston Partners in Education is committed to advancing pre-existing classroom goals by matching students with speakers whose professional work relates to classroom curricula whenever possible.

Our hope is that these new Big Cheese sessions will serve as a career exploration exercise for students and allow students to see the practical, real-world application of academic subjects. Our intention is that these sessions will inspire dialogue between students and speakers about career choices and realities, and give students a chance to ask questions and dive deep into professional worlds and speakers’ related personal experiences. Since its inception in 2004, over 500 corporate and community leaders have gone back into the classroom to support the initiative. 

Helping to fund our major programs

The Big Cheese Initiative is also our corporate fundraising initiative, which supports all of our in-school academic mentoring programs. Funds raised through the initiative enable us to recruit, train, place, and support more volunteers in Boston Public Schools classrooms.

The initiative culminates in our annual Big Cheese Gala, where over 450 of our community partners and civic leaders join us annually in support of public education and our Big Cheese speakers.

For a list of sponsorship levels, please see the Corporate Sponsorship Levels.

For more information on becoming or sponsoring a Big Cheese speaker, please contact Fran Batuyios: [email protected] or call 617.451.6145.