糖心vlog

糖心vlog has received a nearly $200,000 grant from the WE Will! K-16 Collaborative to expand college readiness in the Central Valley.

The WE Will! Workforce and Education Collaborative, led by UC Merced, has awarded聽 in Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties.

The funding will help Pacific establish a new financial wellness program, provide scholarships to the Pacific Summer High School Institute and expand engagement with Spanish-speaking students and their families.

The financial wellness program will include a mobile-accessible microsite. The multi-faceted program, called Prosper, will help participants build knowledge and skills that cover personal and family financial planning and explore pathways for educational and career advancement.

The program will take an intentionally intersectional approach to meet families鈥� needs for establishing financial wellness skills that go beyond day-to-day finances and focus on long-term financial planning.

Prosper will also focus on demystifying the cost and value of pursuing higher education. The program will have a marketing campaign to raise awareness about its resources that will be featured at Pacific events, aiming to reach聽about聽192,400 total students.

鈥淲hat makes our project really stand out is how many families and students we look to impact,鈥� said Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Gretchen Edwalds-Gilbert. 鈥�It's a much more systemic training and education program for families in our entire tri-county area, not just students currently enrolled at Pacific, but others as well. We鈥檙e going out and seeing how many families we can impact with this Prosper program.鈥�

High school students and their families participating in the Prosper financial wellness program will gain skills, knowledge and abilities to manage finances in a holistic way. In addition to helping connect students to FAFSA, a federal student aid application form, and CADAA, the California Dream Act Application, the program will help clarify the cost of a college degree through a broader college affordability bilingual campaign.

The funding will also make six scholarships available for high school students who want to attend the Pacific Summer High School Institute, said Edwalds-Gilbert.

Pacific offers a two-week residential pre-college summer institute that was established in 2022.聽At the institute, students engage with Pacific鈥檚 faculty and industry professionals and are empowered to learn, network and gain hands-on experience in the field they are interested in pursuing. Students are immersed in learning environments like labs, studios and makerspaces. As part of the WE Will! initiative, the program would also have a focus on health careers in the tri-county region.

These experiences help students understand the needs of their communities and opportunities they could fill by pursuing a career and college education in the region.

鈥淭he overarching goal of聽WE Will! is providing educational and career opportunities for students from the tri county area that enable them to get a job here and stay here,鈥澛燛dwalds-Gilbert said. 鈥淧roviding really wonderful opportunities that will keep them here will in turn help grow business and the economy in the tri-county area.鈥�