Bridgeport Caribe Youth Leaders’ (BCYL) affectionately known as Caribe, established in 2003 is celebrating our 20th Anniversary throughout the year. I am proud of how we have transformed Caribe from a baseball league to a grassroots youth development organization serving over 10,000 youth since we began this incredible journey.

In 2022, we had our highest participation rate serving over 1,700 youth and increasing programs by 30%! Caribe’s scholarship program continues to make an impact as 118 students since 2009, have received collectively $1.2 million in high school and college tuition scholarships! Resulting in 26 Caribe College Scholarship graduates with 17 of them being first-time college graduates in their families!

In addition, the Caribe Community Club is working with parents to educate them on resources and workshops around Housing, Employment, Education, Food, and Civic Engagement; for them to gain knowledge and become self-advocates. We focus on teaching how to fish so they can achieve long sustainment of their goals and accomplishments.

Caribe’s foundational principle of placing Love and Family in all we do has enabled us to provide youth with access and exposure to leadership opportunities. I am grateful to God for placing incredible people in our path, who believe in and support our objective of building tomorrow’s leaders.

I encourage you to browse the website and learn about the great things happening at Caribe!

Que Viva Caribe!

John Torres, Executive Director