Put your ones up! That’s what Mubarak Lawrence ’10 and Alex Peay ’09 have been saying since their Ursinus days. It means, “We’re one and we’re rising together.” The classmates-turned-business partners founded Ones Up, a community service organization that aims to build young male and female leaders and address issues affecting underprivileged populations. It grew out of the Rising Sons initiative they started at Ursinus, and in 2016 they were awarded Echoing Green’s Black Male Achievement Fellowship. “We use community engagement as a workforce development tool to help young people turn their passion into their profession,” Peay says. “By helping people determine what career they want to pursue and
what skills they possess, we’re enabling them to create and follow their own career paths.” That’s something these two Bears say is embedded in the culture at Ursinus.