With a law degree from Harvard, Jean Egan surely had ingress to numerous professional opportunities. However, the focus of what would be her life’s work were the youngest residents of the Long Beach area and how she could ensure their progress in school and, hence, success in life.
Although she died at 56 late last month, Egan left behind a local legacy that will continue to nurture the development of young people as students, mentors and success stories, according to the officials who now run a nonprofit organization she founded– Long Beach BLAST (Better Learning for All Students Today)– which pairs college students and children for one-on-one mentoring to foster academics, future thinking and character development.
“You don’t meet many people with a Harvard Law degree who give up a promising legal career to work with inner-city kids, but that is what Jean Egan did,” wrote Doug Haubert, Long Beach city prosecutor, in an emailed response to the Signal Tribune Tuesday.
From left: Long Beach City Prosecutor Douglas Haubert and Jean Egan at a benefit breakfast in 2018. The event is one of two annual fundraisers for Long Beach BLAST, a mentoring organization that Egan founded.
Haubert said he met Egan shortly after he was first elected, while he was researching the value of youth mentoring, particularly for at-risk kids.
“I wanted to partner with the most reputable local mentoring organizations,” he wrote. “I think Long Beach BLAST and Operation Jump Start were the first that I partnered with.”
Haubert described Egan as an ambitious leader with an extensive influence on local students.
“She was so passionate about Long Beach kids and wanted each one to reach his or her potential,” he wrote. “Jean was a blessing to our city, and her work made a difference in the lives of thousands of kids.”
Through both grassroots organizing and political involvement, Egan developed programs that benefited students in public elementary schools and created citywide policies and mandates that supported children’s learning, according to Long Beach BLAST’s website.
Egan founded the organization after seeing a need for after-school programs for primary-grade students, according to the website.
“Jean did all the work in the early years– grant writing, program development, incorporation of the new agency, development of a board and coordination with the school district to bring the programs to the kids,” states the organization’s website. “Jean did all this with no compensation and only a dream to fulfill and a need to meet.”
In 1998, then Mayor Beverly O’Neill appointed Egan as chair of the Youth and Education section of the Long Beach Strategic Plan, through which she worked with community leaders, education professionals, school-district employees and parents to develop goals and objectives that would create the city’s plan for its children and youth through 2010.
Those undertakings indicated that the missing component was a consistent focus on improving the welfare of young people throughout the city, many of whom were at-risk youth.
“Key goals set forth in the plan included increasing the percentage of at-risk youth meeting academic standards, increasing youth engagement in productive activities and engaging college students as volunteers and mentors,” Long Beach BLAST’s website states. “Jean had a passion for helping youth reach their academic and personal success. Because of her passion and dedication, thousands of students over the years have been positively impacted.”
In a phone interview this week, Liliana Real, executive director of Long Beach BLAST, said Egan’s legacy and reach have been “immeasurable.”
“She has affected, in a positive way, youth from kindergarten all the way to young adults doing their masters and their doctorates,” Real said. “Not only is the program geared to helping at-risk youth in the city, but it also helps our college students. We harness their spirit and their volunteerism to help our youth, but it also helps them out. Most of our mentors are future educators or people that are going to work in the social-services field, and, being able to work with our youth one-to-one helps them specifically to go into their career and also gives them experience working with kids.”
Real said that, upon hearing the news of Egan’s passing, several individuals who had volunteered as mentors expressed how much working with the organization benefited them.
“When we sent out the email to announce her passing, we had former mentors respond and say how much BLAST helped them with their future and helped them be empathetic,” Real said.
Marquita Grenot-Scheyer, the organization’s board president, told the Signal Tribune this week that local children had long been a priority for Egan.
“Jean began this organization over 16 years ago, and she built this organization to serve the children and youth of Long Beach, and her work has always been about student success and well-being,” Grenot-Scheyer said. “So, the legacy she will leave is that thousands– tens of thousands– of students, both in pre-school and high school, as well as our college and community-college mentors, have had the opportunity to come together to provide mentoring for children and youth.”
Grenot-Scheyer emphasized Egan’s ability to act as a bridge between various entities to achieve her goals in promoting student success, not only with Long Beach BLAST, but also through her leadership at Long Beach Career-Linked Learning (CaLL), a nonprofit that engages business partners to support students in career awareness, preparation and training.
“Jean was masterful at working across the educational segments and the community to serve the children and youth of Long Beach,” she said. “She worked in schools within the Long Beach Unified School District, she worked with our community-college partners, and she worked with our four-year institutions, such as Cal State Long Beach. That’s when I first met Jean, about 12 years ago, where she strong-armed me into becoming a board member because she thought that I would be a great ally to make sure that we got the best and brightest and most diverse mentors to serve her children.”
Grenot-Scheyer’s first words to describe the education leader were “wicked-smart.”
“She was so persistent,” she said. “All of her work focused on the children and youth of Long Beach, and she could work a room like nobody else I knew, while at the same time making you feel that you were the most special person to her. She will leave a great legacy.”
However, the board president also stressed how important motherhood was to Egan.
“She and I both have college-age students, so every time we’d get together, we’d do updates on our daughters, and she always, always talked about how proud she was and how much she loved her daughter, [Ann Garth],” she said. “And, at the [July 13] memorial service, Jean was smiling, because Ann did such a great tribute to her.”
There is no question as to the future of Long Beach BLAST, according to Grenot-Scheyer.
“On behalf of the board,” she said, “I can guarantee you that her legacy will continue to grow and to flourish as we work with our community partners and our school district and higher-ed partners, to ensure that we continue to provide high-quality mentoring services to ensure students’ success and well-being.”
