A tragedy in her hometown launched Jaci McCormack’s winding journey. Now, as co-founder and chief executive officer of Seattle nonprofit Rise Above, she’s committed to empowering Native youth to live healthy lives.

McCormack was raised on the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. She was a. young teenager when a boy was assaulted and died. She knew the perpetrators and spoke up — “in hindsight, I didn’t bring anything forward that authorities didn’t already know” — but a line was drawn, and McCormack went to live with her aunt and uncle in Lake Oswego, an affl uent Portland suburb.

She didn’t fit in academically or socially, but it changed her life. McCormack, a talented basketball player, met Gary Lavender, an Oregon coaching legend who headed Lake Oswego’s girls’ team.

“He came into my life at a critical moment, and just really instilled that confidence and support system I was looking for,” McCormack recalls. “He was such a big part of me growing as a person. It kind of changed my path.”

That path led to a D-1 scholarship and successful career at Illinois State. She moved back to the reservation following graduation, eventually serving as deputy executive director of the tribe. She and the man who became her business partner, Brad Meyers, then moved to Seattle to launch a program aimed at empowering Native American youth. Eventually, Rise Above was born.

McCormack notes that Native youth graduation rates are just 60% in Washington state, and the suicide rate is 2.5 times higher than the national average. She estimates that the nonprofi t has served upward of 10,000 youth, with a focus on prevention, early intervention, and mental wellness. Along the way, McCormack and Meyers discovered that basketball was the best way to convey that message.

“If we talk about drug and alcohol prevention, we’ll get 10, 15 kids, a couple of grandmas, aunties, uncles,” McCormack says. “But if we say we’re going to hold a basketball clinic on a Saturday we fill the gym, and we just incorporate the messaging into those moments.”

Rise Above has received an abundance of recognition for its work. It has forged countless community partnerships, including with the Seattle Storm and Seattle Kraken, which also honored McCormack with a “Hero of the Deep Award.” The Seattle Sports Commission honored Rise Above and McCormack last year with its Sports Equity and Inclusion Award.

The nonprofit remains a local organization, but has gone “semi-national” and holds clinics across the nation, including last year in North Carolina, Portland, and Colorado. Rise Above even debuted its first New York City Marathon team.

McCormack’s decision to come forward amid tragedy all those years ago is also the subject of an upcoming feature-length film,

Rise Above, that follows “her internal battle to do what’s right for her community.” Rise Above is now in the process of assembling an “alumni network” to highlight those the organization has helped the past 10 years.

“It’s been fun to watch these kids shine, that’s for sure,” McCormack says.