A Daughter of Nigerian Immigrants Helping Under-Represented Students See the World

When Bola Ibidapo learned her friend Brandon Miller was raising money to help young students obtain passports, she immediately told Miller she was eager to provide assistance.

"Before you know it, we’re talking and exchanging our own experiences about what it was like to be black, young and abroad and how it shaped our perspectives," Ibidapo said.

"I shared, when I was abroad, the experience of being one of the only black students in my program. As we’re talking, I go, 'You should do a fundraiser event like a happy hour mix and call it the Too Fly fundraiser.' And that's literally how it started."

That conversation close to six years ago spurred Ibidapo and Miller to launch the Too Fly Foundation, a Texas-based organization that provides passport and travel grants to individual students and U.S.-based student organizations. Too Fly, to date, has helped more than 170 students study abroad in locations such as Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Costa Rica and Japan.

The students Too Fly has helped belong to segments of the population underrepresented in U.S. study abroad programs — Hispanic and African Americans.

"Not to say that low exposure (to travel) or being financially disadvantaged is synonymous with being Black or Brown because that's not something I want to (insinuate)," said Ibi