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Scholarship for transitioning foster youth is more than just money
By Allison Brown Pasadena Weekly Staff Writer
The Pasadena Community Foundation received $10 million from the Margie & Robert E. Petersen Foundation to establish a scholarship program to help remove the typical obstacles encountered by transition-age foster youth as they pursue their education.
“We are honored by the opportunity to steward this significant legacy,” said Jennifer DeVoll, PCF president and CEO. “These students face additional challenges as they transition into adulthood, and the availability of wrap-around support for financial, social-emotional and hardship needs will allow them to focus on priorities and general well-being. The Petersen Scholars Program will expand opportunities for transition-age foster youth to achieve their career goals.”
The program, named the Margie & Robert E. Petersen Scholarship Endowment for Transition Age Foster Youth, is in response to a huge problem in both the local community and nationwide. According to Kate Clavijo, PCF grants program director, currently in California, 62% of foster youth enroll in college, but only 10% of those students attain a degree.
“A lot of things that we take for granted in terms of what it takes to succeed in college, this population just doesn’t have access to,” Clavijo said.
She said there are many factors that play into this. Some do not think about the number of times a foster child moves and has to switch schools. Clavijo said this sets back their learning and that affects their academic preparation for college. Of course, finances is one of the more obvious setbacks for foster youth pursuing secondary education. Clavijo said scholarships are usually given to the highest-performing students, but, usually, the ones who really need that funding don’t always fit into that category.
“We’ve heard over and over again about foster youth living in their cars while they’re attending school and working more than 30 hours a week,” she said.
The scholarship program would help alleviate that financial stress to allow students more time to focus on their academics. Recipients wouldn’t just receive a lump sum of money and be sent off to college, though. Clavijo said from other scholarship programs the Pasadena Community Foundation has offered, they have learned how to best support students, and it takes more than money.
“Financial assistance alone is not enough to support a student. We’ve learned to connect some kind of financial reward with a caring adult,” she explained. “We’ve learned that it’s really important that not just money reaches the students but also support in the form of a mentor or an academic counselor, somebody who really cares about the student and will follow up with them and check in and see, beyond academics, what their other needs are.”
Jeannine Bogaard, senior program manager, said the foundation has taken several steps to ensure it is maximizing the assistance given to recipients. She said they have spent months researching the living conditions, challenges and even legislation regarding foster youth. The foundation has also partnered with community colleges in the area who can weigh in on what they have seen with college-age foster students.
Of course, Bogaard said no one knows the challenges transitioning foster youth experience better than themselves, which is why she is utilizing their help, too.
“We’ve reached out to former foster youth and have spoken to them about some of what they lived in their reality,” Bogaard said. “Then we also wanted to organize an advisory committee so former foster youth could advise us and sort of enlighten us as to some of the challenges that they faced that we might not be aware of given that we’ve had a more privileged situation.”
The scholarship program will launch this fall with a smaller cohort of about 30 students. The goal is to support 90 students annually. For more information, visit pasadenacf.org.
Nick Stein presented to Innovate Pasadena in 2020.
Innovate Pasadena creating communities through local meetups
By Luke Netzley Pasadena Weekly Deputy Editor
From the California Institute of Technology to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, innovation lies at the heart of the Pasadena community. To help sustain the city’s vibrant mosaic of innovators in the wake of the pandemic, nonprofit Innovate Pasadena has meet on the second Tuesday of every month at a local bar, providing innovators of all types a casual social environment to meet, network and discover their next big opportunity. Past venues have included Pasadena favorites like Bar Celona and Barney’s Beanery. held their first successful gatherings for 2022: Friday Coffee Meetup and Pasadena Tech Happy Hour.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Friday Coffee Meetup events have been held virtually and invited guest speakers to share their expertise. After the presentations, the meetup events include a moderated Q&A and networking session.
In their last Friday Coffee Meetup session, Innovate Pasadena invited NEON ID founder and CEO Gillian Delaunay, who recounted the journey she took to starting her own tech company.
“I was on a call with the volunteers last week, and I have never heard so many people describe a meetup event using the word ‘love,’” McClinton said. “There was a woman there who described that at a later stage in her life, her and her husband had the confidence to start a business that she attributes directly to going to Friday Coffee, learning about what it’s like to start a business, and being so accepted by the organization and having her questions answered that they felt confident enough to start their own business.”
Meetups will continue virtually on the first Friday of every month at 8:30 am with a diverse lineup of speakers primed to share stories about their professional and personal success. The next speaker will be business and funding strategist Delilah Panio, who will discuss public venture capital and how it could benefit local companies in her talk on Friday, March 4.
While the Friday Coffee Meetup and Pasadena Tech Happy Hour were both made to bring Pasadena community members together, the events offer different dynamics.
“They serve two different audiences,” McClinton said. “Tech Happy Hour is about relaxing at the end of the day with people who understand what you’re doing, what you’re trying to accomplish. That meetup started before the pandemic, and we’re really leaning into that because I think it’s going to be the gateway to our next generation.”
Organized by the Innovate Pasadena PR and Programming Committee’s Herminio Garcia, Pasadena Tech Happy Hour will meet on Tuesday, March 8, at 6 p.m. and continue to “I’m looking forward to getting back in person again and how we can engage the community on a different level,” McClinton said. By drawing together people from different age groups, backgrounds and interests, Innovate Pasadena acts as a social center for technology and design innovation promoting collaboration in business, educational and casual settings. In the future, Innovate Pasadena will look to introduce new ways to bring people together, such as speaking with small businesses and learning from business owners that have had to fight for survival during the pandemic. “We need to learn from folks who are on the ground and who pivoted to keep their doors open, because there’s a lesson in there that we can all learn from,” McClinton explained. “That dialogue, that idea of what it takes to have a healthy ecosystem, needs to go beyond just tech and design companies, but to include everyone who keeps the ecosystem around the greater Pasadena area healthy, vibrant and alive. So, this year would be a lot more of a reaching out and being inclusive in a different kind of way.” From panel discussions to their monthly Ask an Expert series, Innovate Pasadena offers numerous platforms for members of the Pasadena community to share about themselves and their expertise. “We are definitely looking for folks who have a story to tell,” McClinton said. “If you have a story to tell and want to share something that enriches any community, reach out to us because we want to expand what people know and what they can do.” To get involved with Innovate Pasadena as a member or speaker, visit innovatepasadena.org.
Innovate Pasadena Meetups
WHERE: Friday Coffee Meetup – Online via Zoom. Pasadena Tech Happy Hour – local bar, location subject to change. WHEN: Friday Coffee Meetup – 8:30 a.m. on the first Friday of every month. Pasadena Tech Happy Hour – 6 p.m. on the second Tuesday of every month. INFO: innovatepasadena.org
