For over a year, stories of economic devastation, food and housing insecurity, and the challenges of remote learning have dominated headlines as the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in dramatic changes for education, businesses, and communities. In the Columbus, Ohio region, the pandemic widened existing inequalities, as it did across the rest of the nation; the people hardest hit were low-wage workers--who are disproportionately Black and Latinx--and their families. The effects reverberated throughout educational institutions, as attendance at the region's most economically disadvantaged school districts dropped sharply and turnover spiked. It was in this unprecedented context that leaders from Columbus State Community College, seven K-12 school districts, the Educational Service Center of Central Ohio (ESC), and Jobs for the Future (JFF) entered the final year of a major five-year initiative: the Central Ohio Partnership for College and Career Readiness Expansion (CCRE), which is focused on expanding the college pipeline through dual enrollment. This final publication details how the CCRE initiative evolved over the later years of the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) grant, how collaboration grew stronger, and how the purpose of the work became even clearer in a time of national crisis. [Additional matching fund support was provided by the American Electric Power Foundation's Credits Count initiative. For the first brief in this series, see ED588452. For the second brief in the series, see ED603601.]