About One Dream

One Dream helps students, especially those from low-income and first-generation backgrounds, complete high school and move into postsecondary pathways that lead to meaningful careers.

Those pathways may include college, technical training, military service, apprenticeships, skilled trades, or other routes students choose for themselves.

Our goal is not just enrollment. We stay with students as they persist, complete, transition into thriving careers, build financial self-sufficiency, and create a stronger foundation for generational prosperity.

 A young person’s zip code should never decide their future. Yet too many first-generation and low-income students leave high school without a clear next step, or without someone they trust to help them navigate it.

 One Dream meets students with respect for who they are, what they have experienced, and what they want for their future. Our Transition Specialists help students make decisions, complete forms, meet deadlines, solve problems, and keep moving when the process gets confusing.

We see racial identity, culture, language, and orientation as sources of strength, not barriers to overcome. When students are supported in who they are, they’re better able to build the futures they want for themselves, their families, and their communities.

One Dream uses GPS-style “To-and-Through” advising. We help students identify where they want to go, map the steps to get there, and adjust the route when life, money, paperwork, or uncertainty gets in the way.

Each student works with a Transition Specialist from the moment we begin, whether that’s during high school, the summer after graduation, or later when they’re trying to find their direction.

We build long-term relationships with students while keeping track of the things that can affect their progress, including financial aid, enrollment, grades, and whether they are staying on track. 

Colleges, apprenticeship programs, military recruiters, and training providers all have resources. The problem is that students often don’t know who to ask, what to ask, or when to ask. One Dream bridges that gap through one consistent relationship.

We stay with students as they pursue college, skilled trades, tech, military service, certificates, apprenticeships, or other pathways they envision, and we remain with them until they are moving toward a thriving, livable career.

Most programs help for a semester, a summer, or a scholarship year. One Dream stays longer.

Same Specialist, Start to Finish

The Transition Specialist a student trusts early on is the same person who helps review grades, renew financial aid, prepare for advising meetings, troubleshoot bills, and later think through internships, apprenticeships, military steps, interviews, or salary conversations.

No handoffs. No starting over with someone new.

Relationship Before Requirements

We build trust first. Then we tackle the forms, deadlines, decisions, and crises that can derail a student’s path.

To-and-Through, and Beyond

Our measure of success is not just admission or enrollment. It’s persistence, completion, and movement into work that can support a real life.

Because the relationship lasts, the impact lasts.

Craig Peña, MSSW, is a Denver native, DPS graduate, and education and nonprofit executive with more than 30 years of experience advancing postsecondary opportunity, student success, workforce pathways, and community-based services. He is the Founder and Executive Director of One Dream Educational Nonprofit, where he leads strategy, partnerships, consulting, and student support services that help young people move from high school through postsecondary education and training and into meaningful careers.

Through One Dream, Craig also provides consulting and technical assistance to education, nonprofit, higher education, and funding organizations on student success strategy, program development, funding approaches, and implementation.

Craig earned his B.S.S.W. from Colorado State University and his M.S.S.W. from Columbia University. His career has included work with individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS in New York City, mental health services for homeless and formerly homeless New Yorkers, leadership at Servicios de La Raza, Colorado GEAR UP, and Denver Public Schools. His leadership experience includes managing complex public and nonprofit initiatives, multidisciplinary teams, budgets, contracts, grants, and partnerships across education, workforce, government, and community systems.

Across his work with GEAR UP, DPS, independent advising, and One Dream, Craig has directly advised and supported more than 2,500 students as they moved from high school into college, apprenticeships, skilled trades, technical training, military service, and other postsecondary pathways, and through persistence, completion, and the transition toward meaningful careers.

At DPS, Craig negotiated higher education agreements that generated more than $1 million annually in additional financial aid for DPS graduates, developed partnerships with 14 union apprenticeship programs, and designed the College & Career Accessibility Support Alliance, an intensive advising model for low-income students. He leveraged relationships with the City and County of Denver to secure $530,000 in startup funding for the initiative.

Craig was a named plaintiff in the landmark Keyes v. School District No. 1 desegregation case and the DPS English Language Learner Consent Decree. He also co-authored Resegregation in Denver Public Schools. Bilingual in Spanish and English and a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico, Craig works with students and families in ways that build trust across language, culture, and community.

Craig believes talent is everywhere, but opportunity, guidance, and institutional support are not. His work focuses on closing that gap so students can complete their pathways, enter meaningful careers, and build a foundation for long-term prosperity.