Community Impact: Jeter White’s Journey to National Rainbow College Fund

August 06, 2025 | By NRCF Vol­un­teer

While search­ing LinkedIn for vol­un­teer oppor­tu­ni­ties that aligned with his val­ues, Jeter White dis­cov­ered Nation­al Rain­bow Schol­ar­ship Fund (NRCF). Liv­ing in Flori­da, he felt an imme­di­ate con­nec­tion to the orga­ni­za­tion’s mis­sion. “My pas­sion for this work res­onat­ed deeply when I came across NRCF’s post dur­ing my research,” he shared.

Ear­ly Foun­da­tions in Mass­a­chu­setts

Jeter’s com­mit­ment to ser­vice began ear­ly. Grow­ing up in Massachusetts—a state he describes as “thank­ful­ly a safe place polit­i­cal­ly for these issues”—he start­ed vol­un­teer­ing with Unit­ed Way in mid­dle school and began work­ing with them reg­u­lar­ly in high school. This ear­ly expe­ri­ence launched what would become both a per­son­al mis­sion and pro­fes­sion­al career path focused on youth vol­un­teer train­ing and lead­er­ship.

The piv­otal moment came in 2013 at his first Com­mu­ni­ty Anti-Drug Coali­tions of Amer­i­ca (CADCA) con­fer­ence. With addic­tion impact­ing many of his loved ones, sub­stance abuse pre­ven­tion had always been a pas­sion, but some­thing trans­for­ma­tive hap­pened in that con­fer­ence room with hun­dreds of young peo­ple his age.

“We were all learn­ing about this sub­ject mat­ter togeth­er and how to tack­le it, when sud­den­ly I real­ized that youth lead­er­ship and guid­ance would be my focus,” he recalled. “In that moment, I decid­ed I want­ed to teach that very same thing to oth­ers. I actu­al­ly went up to the front of the room and declared that pas­sion and com­mit­ment.”

Break­ing Out of His Shell

That con­fer­ence marked a turn­ing point for the nat­u­ral­ly intro­vert­ed young man. “This was the first time I had ever branched out of my com­fort zone,” he reflect­ed. “But before I knew it, that orga­ni­za­tion had me fly­ing all over the coun­try as a pub­lic speak­er, immersed in sub­stance abuse strate­gies, advo­ca­cy, and pol­i­cy work.”

In 2016, Jeter took a lead­er­ship role among his peers to orga­nize meet­ings with leg­is­la­tors on Capi­tol Hill, advo­cat­ing for the Sober Truth on Pre­vent­ing (STOP) Under­age Drink­ing Act. He shared his pub­lic speak­ing and pol­i­cy knowl­edge, sup­port­ing many of his peers through their first inter­ac­tions with the nation’s lead­ers. These efforts con­tributed direct­ly to the reau­tho­riza­tion of the act, which became part of the 21st Cen­tu­ry Cures Act on Decem­ber 13, 2016. This achieve­ment under­scored his grow­ing con­fi­dence and impact, affirm­ing his com­mit­ment to mean­ing­ful change and val­i­dat­ing his direc­tion and efforts.

Learn­ing Lead­er­ship in Orlan­do

Jeter’s path took an unex­pect­ed turn when he moved to Orlan­do and entered the theme park indus­try. Far from aban­don­ing his mis­sion, he saw this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn from orga­ni­za­tions that excel at guid­ing mil­lions of peo­ple through expe­ri­ences.

“This career path helped me grow as a leader,” he explained. “There’s no oth­er orga­ni­za­tion like these world-class theme parks. The lev­el of cus­tomer ser­vice is unmatched, and I learned how they suc­ceed.”

His time at Uni­ver­sal Orlan­do Resort proved par­tic­u­lar­ly for­ma­tive, espe­cial­ly work­ing on acces­si­bil­i­ty ini­tia­tives. “I learned valu­able skills about mak­ing expe­ri­ences equal and acces­si­ble for guests with dis­abil­i­ties,” he said. “The ques­tion that always guid­ed us was: How can we as a team make their stay equal and min­i­mize incon­ve­nience dur­ing their expe­ri­ence at the park?”

Bridg­ing Worlds at NAHRO

After lead­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty efforts at Uni­ver­sal, Jeter tran­si­tioned to the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Hous­ing and Rede­vel­op­ment Offi­cials (NAHRO), drawn by the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work along­side some of the same pas­sion­ate advo­cates and lead­ers he’d met at CADCA years ear­li­er.

Today, he pri­mar­i­ly man­ages Emerg­ing LEAD­er­ship (Learn, Explore, Assess and Devel­op) train­ing pro­grams at NAHRO for afford­able hous­ing lead­ers with an empha­sis on logis­tics and cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment. He’s also pio­neer­ing ini­tia­tives in lead­er­ship and advo­ca­cy specif­i­cal­ly for youth liv­ing in afford­able hous­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

Find­ing Pur­pose with NRCF

This work with under­served youth nat­u­ral­ly led Jeter to NRCF. “I want to sup­port young adults out­side of my job—to vol­un­teer in this mis­sion and lead with kind­ness,” he explained. “As a mem­ber of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty myself, I want to help younger adults com­ing up behind me.”

The NRCF schol­ar­ship appli­ca­tions have pro­found­ly impact­ed him. “I knew I would encounter emo­tion­al stories—after all, I had my strug­gles too. Every­one does. But what I did­n’t expect was that by the end of each appli­ca­tion, I felt like I knew that per­son or could have known them,” he empha­sized. “These appli­ca­tions con­tain real sto­ries from real peo­ple with heart­felt chal­lenges and inspir­ing dreams.”

A Mes­sage of Hope and Per­sis­tence

Jeter’s mes­sage to the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty is both real­is­tic and empow­er­ing: “Every­one deserves sup­port as long as their goals are pos­i­tive. As for our community—we are here to stay. We’re not going any­where, and peo­ple are start­ing to see that. We have a lot to con­tribute to the world.”

He acknowl­edges the unique chal­lenges faced by LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als while empha­siz­ing the pow­er of authen­tic sto­ry­telling. “Our lived expe­ri­ence isn’t the same as oth­ers, and we face unique chal­lenges,” he not­ed. “But it’s empow­er­ing to encour­age oth­ers to speak up and share their sto­ries. Lead­ing peo­ple to tru­ly open their hearts to what’s dif­fer­ent in the world—bringing those new per­spec­tives to peo­ple who may not under­stand but might shift their point of view from one of these stu­dents’ stories—that’s what dri­ves me every day.”

Through his jour­ney from an intro­vert­ed mid­dle school­er to a nation­al advo­cate, Jeter White exem­pli­fies how per­son­al pas­sion, pro­fes­sion­al growth, and com­mu­ni­ty com­mit­ment can con­verge to cre­ate mean­ing­ful change. His work with NRCF rep­re­sents not just vol­un­teer ser­vice, but a con­tin­u­a­tion of his life­long mis­sion to empow­er young peo­ple to over­come chal­lenges and achieve their poten­tial.

Want to Make a Dif­fer­ence?

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