Dropbox kicked off their relationship with Enterprise for Youth by hosting Mission High School student Marlon Ochoa as an intern. Jesus Bellot, Marlon’s boss in the IT Department, told his community that Marlon picked up new technologies faster than any adult during their training. 

This all happened because both Enterprise and Mission High share the same purpose—to prepare young people for their futures. Dropbox also values youth.

“Making tech approachable is really important to us, especially when it comes to our city’s youth,” says Dropbox’s Social Impact Manager, Jacquelyn Horton. “They’re the future of our workforce, so it just makes sense.”

We thank Mark D’Acquisto, a longtime Mission High School teacher who now is the lead Career Tech counselor at the school. He works with youth throughout Mission High around job-readiness and career exploration. He has worked with us to embed Enterprise for Youth’s job-readiness training and other programs throughout the school. We also thank Dropbox for working behind the scenes to develop a supportive and educational internship experience. To make all of this even more special, Dropbox was the first corporate partner in Enterprise’s history to pay the full cost of an internship—the youth training stipend, youth wages, the infrastructure costs it takes to train youth before their internship and to provide job coaching along the way. 

At the end of last summer, Marlon got an incredible graduation gift—he was invited to stay on to work at Dropbox as an employee! We are so proud.

“Going from intern to employee, I was allowed to take on more responsibilities. The internship made my transition almost seamless as I was already trained. I am grateful to everyone who trained me as if I was already an employee and took time out of their day to help me.”

—Marlon Ochoa, IT Logistics Technician

Last winter, we received good news from our friends at Dropbox in the form of a contribution from their philanthropy team and a donation of refurbished laptops. We celebrated their kindness by using their generous donation to subsidize other internships where partners are unable to pay fees, like internships at City Hall, some arts organizations, and Environmental Stewardship placements. We are humbled to find corporate partners like Dropbox that support youth and our burgeoning workforce. 

Dropbox highlighted the impact of Marlon on their blog. Check it out!