By Emily Torres
Legacy L.A., a youth organization, now offers East Los Angeles College students the College Persistence Program.
They are working on expanding their programming and support center for youth.
Ruby Rivera, Director of Programs and Policy, shares in detail the benefits of the program and her hope for what the program can bring to ELAC students.
Legacy L.A. has already begun working on building their relationship with ELAC and the Delloro Transfer Program in 2016, as well as different academic programs offered on campus.
They successfully involved ELAC into their own facility.
For example, classes are offered during the fall, which are accessible to current college students involved in the College Persistence Program.
The classes are combined with a few of their current high school students.
These classes are taught by ELAC professors at Legacy L.A. rather than the ELAC campus.
By doing this, Legacy L.A. hopes to serve as a space free of judgment, easy to access and a smaller student count.
Legacy L.A. provides a safe space for the high school students to get a taste of attending a college class while enrolling into ELAC early.
They have also helped ELAC’s Delloro Transfer Program by offering to host and provide one of their first classes with a safe space for some of the leadership program training at their facility.
Legacy L.A. is a nonprofit organization that was originally opened to help prevent high school students in Los Angeles of being dropouts and not attending college.
After they opened they successfully had over twenty high school graduates whom they have helped lead on their paths to college and university.
Legacy L.A. also focuses on expanding facilities for youth and running campaigns to find more funding to build more facilities in order to keep the youth busy and out of gang injunctions or becoming incarcerated.
The College Persistence Program would offer the opportunity for students to be connected to resources, such as programs and internships, and take away from students overall college experience and the importance of excelling in community college.
The program would also give students their own mentor who will help guide students throughout their college experience in various ways.
It will also help by reaching parts of a student’s life outside of school where they may be struggling.
This guidance and mentorship would include personal check-ins that can vary from once a month to once a week.
The mentorship they can receive will depend on the student preferences and needs.
“These check-ins are based more off our mentoring model, believing in being more holistic our check-ins are going to ask you about the four corners of your life, like how is work, how is family, how is school, and how are you. Like, in your socioemotional, spiritual aspect,” Rivera said.
“It would also the include mentors and case managers supporting you all the time,” Rivera said.
“You can come here and get tutoring for the work in your class and it just feels like a safer place.”
In order to become a member, one can simply show up to Legacy L.A. located in their newly remodeled facility on 1350 San Pablo St., Los Angeles, CA 90033, and fill out a membership form which would only be used to obtain details on the students to be able to assist them as best as they can.
“This would really only be needed so that we can keep track of allergies, medications, emergency contact info, etc,” Rivera said.
They also have no limited capacity, which means they allow any students who are interested to join.
The off-campus site offers access to free computer labs with internet, quiet places to study, free tutoring, free printing and free rental of study rooms for groups.
Legacy L.A. also serves as a reliable outlet in connecting their students with people outside of the organization for internships or speaking with others in the students desired field or interests to help learn more about their majors and ask questions about what their lives could possibly look like after college.
For any questions regarding Legacy L.A. call (323) 987-8367 or e-mail Rivera at Ruby@legacyla.org and for additonal media and updates of current events follow @Legacy_LA.