By Kimberly Chinchilla
East Los Angeles College Summer Festival brought an evening full of informational resources for incoming and current students about career programs and resources offered on campus on May 18.
Students brought family and friends to enjoy games like ring toss.
Children played in the bounce houses and everyone attending the festival received a voucher ticket for burgers from The Habit Grill that was providing food at the event.
Power 106, the Los Angeles hip-hop radio station, filled the ambience with music and gave away free merchandise, along with tickets to “The Little Mermaid.”
Students who attended thefestival were able to apply for a one-time reward.The reward was a free laptop.
Staff at the event said the laptops were bought with the funds that were given during the pandemic.
Students were able to apply to this scholarship on the spot and see if they qualified.
The requirements were simple: students should be actively enrolled at ELAC at the time of disbursement.
They need to designate ELAC as their home campus. Students should be a first-time technology award recipient.
This means that the student applying has never received/picked up a device such as a chrome book, tablet, laptop, or received emergency assistance funding for technology from the Los Angeles Community College District.
Delma and Jasmine Guzman, a mother and daughter, found the event informative. “It is crazy because all this was meant to be. The way I see it because Jasmine doesn’t have a laptop. She was saying how her laptop doesn’t turn on and she was able to get a laptop,” Delma said..
“I was already telling my mom. I need to put money away and I need to save for a laptop and coming here I got one,” Jasmine said.
“I’ll be honest, I usually don’t come to the events or anything but I just told my mom ‘Let’s go.’ I had questions and I feel like coming here.
“I was able to get a lot of information and learn about resources. I need to start coming to more events now,” Jasmine said.
Both Guzman’s plan to attend classes during the summer.
At the event, students were guided through the process of applying for summer courses.
They were able to ask questions and register for classes in a room where staff were helping them enroll.
Some of the booths in attendance were: Screening and Treatment for Anxiety & Depression, who provided services for mental health.
California Youth Leadership Corps, who issued information on how to gain experience in public, community, and environmental health. Career and Academic Pathways, Social Sciences, Health Sciences and others.
Megan Rivera, who is graduating, found the event helpful. She said she was grateful to the faculty and staff who were present at the event.
“My favorite thing about the event is that I was able to learn more about the resources available,” Rivera said.
“I feel like coming here in person was a hundred times better than calling, because you were able to resolve any problems in person,” Delma said..
Delma said the event was a success, “Especially for my daughter because she is just starting to get involved in programs so just talking to people has really opened up her options as to what she wants to do now. I really enjoyed it. It was an easy process to get the help they needed.”
Ruth Carbajal, a student at the South Gate campus, was able to get assistance to enroll for classes. “Since I am older and don’t speak English fluently, I needed assistance in person. I am very proud that at an older age, I am still able to attend classes. I came to this event for help and they helped me enroll in classes and on top of that I learned about other programs the school offers that I might consider,” Carbajal said.
The event was focused on providing information for both incoming and current students.