Harbor Fellows Supports Yale Students with the Greatest Need

Harbor Fellows was established at Dwight Hall in 2018 to address the significant challenges students without adequate familial support face while pursuing an undergraduate degree at Yale. The program was initially created to support and connect former foster youth with students in Connecticut’s foster care system, and the program now proudly includes emancipated or unaccompanied minors, estranged LGBTQIA+ youth, victims of domestic abuse, and those who lack support from traditionally-understood familial structures.

Harbor Fellows founders Sarah Pearl Heard ’18 and Justin Abbasi ’18 met as first-years during FOOT, a Yale pre-orientation program. Initially bonding over being from the Carolinas, Sarah and Justin quickly discovered another commonality: they both had experienced growing up in foster care. 

Soon Sarah and Justin were spending academic breaks together. “We would spend Thanksgiving and Christmas together, and we would check in with each other during milestones like Family Weekend, things we would have wanted a family for,” said Sarah. “We became each other’s family.”

Sarah described the “ad hoc kindnesses and acts of generosity” that she, Justin, and students in similar situations relied on when financial emergencies arose or when dormitories closed during breaks and holidays. Professors would often offer housing to students who they knew had nowhere to go over winter and spring break or invite them over for home-cooked meals. Other times, students relied on suitemates or their residential colleges for urgent support like temporary housing and emergency funding.  

It was through these experiences and Justin’s internship at the research and advocacy organization Connecticut Voices for Children that Justin and Sarah were connected to the individuals who would subsequently anonymously fund the Harbor Fellows program. These longtime advocates of Dwight Hall had been offering this type of ad hoc support to Yale students for years, and as they assisted Justin and Sarah with housing, food, mentorship, and care packages, they also urged the two undergraduates to think about how to formalize this support at Yale.

This idea struck a chord with Sarah and Justin. Both had been individually involved in state-level advocacy for foster kids in the Carolinas and knew the importance of connecting with fellow foster youth and young adults. 

“There is real power in having other people who have faced similar challenges and can bear witness to the triumph, resilience, pain, and loneliness of those experiences feel seen and celebrated,” emphasized Sarah. 

Justin and Sarah registered Harbor Fellows (originally known as “Harbor Scholars”) as a Dwight Hall member group and collaborated with Yale’s Office of Financial Aid and the Dean’s Office to help identify undergraduates who had been in foster care and had aged out of the system or were otherwise independently supporting themselves.   

Activating a peer-to-peer outreach model that prioritized students’ privacy and agency in determining whether or not to participate in the program, Justin and Sarah aimed to further destigmatize the identity of being a student without traditional means of familial support. 

All of this occurred within the larger context of a nationwide reckoning with the ways in which racial and socioeconomic inequities persisted and were perpetuated at institutions like Yale. Sarah described being involved in numerous advocacy campaigns as an undergraduate, from fighting for the renaming of Calhoun College to helping establish the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning to promote more equitable academic practices at Yale. 

“I was very involved in conversations about how we can make students who may not have historically had a place at Yale feel fully welcomed and integrated into every aspect of student life,” she reflected. Harbor Fellows was an essential pillar of promoting that belonging, particularly among first-generation students, low-income students, and students of color. 

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Topher Allen ’26, an Eli Whitney student and current Harbor Fellows Coordinator, echoed this sentiment as the program entered its sixth year in fall 2024: “As a non-traditional and FGLI student who also identifies as a Harbor Fellow, Yale can at times feel rather unfamiliar and difficult to find your community within the broader landscape. Harbor Fellows has helped contribute to an increased sense of belonging at Yale.”

Addressing the myriad of ways that lacking a traditional family structure can impact students, the Harbor Fellows support model is holistic, focusing on financial support (through stipends or emergency “Safety Net” funds), temporary housing resources over breaks and holidays, dental expense coverage, access to academic and professional mentorship, and end-of-semester cohort dinners and social events. 

In particular, Topher emphasized the value of the Harbor Fellows network. “Harbor Fellows is actively cultivating a network of support among the student cohort as well as the administrators, mentors, and donors supporting the program,” he explained. “This could include something as simple as gathering for periodic social events or meals to take a break from academics while reminding them there are other students just like them.” 

For Miranda Rublaitus ’26, a current Harbor Fellow and Eli Whitney student, “Harbor Fellows is quite literally a lifesaver.” She described two instances when Harbor Fellows prevented her from experiencing homelessness, the first time being when her car was stolen and not recovered for five months, and the second time being when she simultaneously experienced having to move apartments due to rent hikes, getting a divorce, and needing to purchase an AC unit while being refused financial support by her ex-spouse for shared bills. Both situations put her under immense financial stress, not to mention significant mental and emotional strain. 

“In both cases, I had no one to turn to for help,” emphasized Miranda. “Without Harbor Fellows, my life trajectory would have changed, likely leading to my having to drop out of Yale for financial reasons.” In both instances, Harbor Fellows was able to respond to Miranda’s urgent needs, even disbursing her stipend early to prevent her from losing her housing, car, and cellphone. 

“I cannot sing the praises of Harbor Fellows enough,” said Miranda. “For students like myself, who do not have parental support or some type of financial safety net to tap into, Harbor Fellows offers a security that all students should have so that they can focus on school and not financial struggles.”

For a student like Emile Izere ’27, who grew up in Rwanda, Harbor Fellows meant the difference between barely making ends meet and being able to partake in the “traditional” college experience that most students take as a given. 

“As an international student from a low-income background, orphaned, and with a negative balance on my account due to student loans from high school, I had no idea how I would survive at Yale,” Emile described. “I had to worry about loans, using the Yale-provided scholarship to cover both my academic and personal expenses, and how I would get by with no balance on my account. To manage, I worked multiple hours to earn enough to survive, which prevented me from maximizing my academic performance and making friends outside of class.”

Emile’s situation changed drastically when he became a Harbor Fellow. “I was able to pay my loans, become part of a community of both fellow students and mentors, and experience what being in college truly means. Whether it was through shared dinners, guidance on excelling academically and professionally, or enjoying fun activities (my first time at Escape Haven!), Harbor Fellows made a huge difference in my life.”

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Sarah, who is now studying Family Therapy at Northwestern University, recently returned to New Haven to have dinner with the current Harbor Fellows cohort and fellow program alumni (a practice the program hopes to repeat annually or biannually). She said it felt like a “360 moment” that helped her further destigmatize her own identity. Sarah remembered thinking, “Regardless of what happened to me, here I am now, here we are now. Thanks to Harbor Fellows, I was able to have more breathing room and more freedom to dream larger than anything I had ever imagined. I think that is the beauty of a place like Yale.”

Harbor Fellows embodies the Advance pillar of Dwight Hall’s Engage, Grow, and Advance program delivery model, which supports collaborative projects and incubates innovative solutions that bring about lasting change in New Haven and communities nationwide. To learn more about how you may engage with Harbor Fellows, please visit https://www.harborfellows.org/.