Abdullah Puckett

In 2013, UC Berkeley alumni, Danny Murillo and Steven Czifra, met on campus and shared their backgrounds on being formerly incarcerated and system impacted individuals. Together, Murillo and Czifra co-founded the Underground Scholars Initiative, or USI, a student-run organization for those who have been personally impacted by the U.S. criminal justice system.

A campus report shows that about 66,000 donors contributed toward the grand total, which is composed of funds from 108,000 individual gifts.

Violeta Alvarez, executive director of the Berkeley Underground Scholars program, was named “2018 Woman of the Year” by state Sen. Nancy Skinner for her work with formerly incarcerated students in a tweet Tuesday.