Emergency Fund
When the foundation did a recent listening tour and evaluation for our new strategic plan, we spoke with every staff and faculty member at the college and asked them what, if anything, they wanted the foundation to do differently. The number one request? Emergency grant funds.
Students have a myriad of obstacles that come up during the school year. A few hundred dollars can make the difference between dropping out and graduating. Such stumbling blocks can drastically alter their future.
A student needs to pay bills now but financial aid won’t come for a few months.
A student is thrown out of their parent’s home and becomes homeless.
A student has a death in the family forcing them to go back to work. This results in them failing a class, triggering a hold on their financial aid.
A student can’t afford the final fees needed to get their certificate allowing them to work.
A student with a rare disability needs a license for special software that the DDS Center doesn’t have.
These are just some of many things that happen to students every year. Such issues don’t fit neatly into a scholarship but can change a life. Some of these can just be a small microloan needed to get through the semester and will be repaid by financial aid. Your gift of $15,000 or more can assure that a student will get the help they need to change their lives for generations.
A $15,000 gift goes into our endowment. 3.5% each year of the funds’ interest is used to provide student scholarships, emergency grants, bridge loans, and presidential scholars programs. The principle is never touched. In this way, each gift provides a minimum of $500 to a student each year… FOREVER! $30,000 provides $1,000 in student help to reach SPACE and change students’ lives forever generationally.
At larger four-year universities, a small gift of $500- 1000 means very little. It may not even pay for one semester of books. But at the community college level, where financial aid pays credits for our students in need, $500 is enough to pay all the fees for a student each year including health fees, parking fees/bus passes, and books. Some programs have higher material fees and we have special scholarships for these programs. Such a scholarship can get a student through a certificated trade that is known to triple a student’s income for life compared to a peer who did not seek education beyond high school. When their lives are changed, they change their families for generations.
Can you help with these small fixes that change lives? To contribute to the Emergency Fund or get more information please contact Zoot Velasco HERE or call/text him on his cellphone at (310) 809-3733