History & Founder

MOSTe Timeline

  • 1986: MOSTe launches a pilot program with 35 mentors and mentees at Horace Mann Junior High.
  • 1988: Creates program at Mount Vernon Middle School (now Johnnie Cochran Middle School) in the Crenshaw district.
  • 1990: Creates program at Audubon Middle School near Leimert Park.
  • 1991: MOSTe incorporates as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
  • 1998: MOSTe adds scholarship programming.
  • 2003: Now at Mount Vernon and Henry Clay Middle School in South LA, MOSTe partners with Wilson Middle School in the Pasadena Unified School District.
  • 2005: MOSTe expands to both the Los Angeles Leadership Academy, a charter school in Montecito Heights, and Carver Middle School in Watts.
  • 2007: MOSTe launches MoreMOSTe, a program to keep girls on track through high school and ensure they go to college. The organization partners with Occidental College in Eagle Rock to help design and implement the program.
  • 2008: MOSTe secures more than $100,000 in scholarship funds from the College Access Foundation of California, the organization’s largest grant award to date.
  • 2009: The 16 young women of the first MoreMOSTe high school graduating class are accepted into selective colleges such as Pitzer, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, and UC Davis. PostMOSTe launches to support them through college.
  • 2013: MOSTe adds a staff College Counselor.
  • 2015: Nearly 100 MOSTe scholars have completed the PostMOSTe program to date. PostMOSTe scholars are currently enrolled at or have graduated from a number of the country’s finest colleges and universities, including: Barnard, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Carnegie Mellon, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall College, Pomona, Syracuse, Tulane, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, Whitman, and Yale. MOSTE enters its 30th year serving approximately 331 students through its three programs, as well as an additional 27 college graduates.

Founder

MOSTe was the brainchild of Dr. Lois Frankel, author of best-selling books about women and leadership roles. In 1986, while researching families and education, Dr. Frankel found that young girls from underserved backgrounds were missing out on key information about higher educational and career opportunities. 

Determined to remove the obstacles that held these girls back, Dr. Frankel gathered representatives from Paramount, First Interstate Bank, Southern California Gas Company, Southern California Edison, Women in Radio and Television, and the Black Women’s Network to develop a format for what would become MOSTe. They envisioned a program that would encourage young women not just to stay in school, but to do well in school, educate them about the working world, and provide guidance about what it takes to become a successful woman.

MOSTe began based on one-on-one mentoring, in the belief that the relationship between a young girl and a successful, professional woman would best achieve the organization’s objectives.