CSF college services expanded to Yakima Valley College

Special thanks to KNDO/KNDU in Yakima for celebrating the expansion of our college services to 5x more Washington state college students in the 2022-2023 academic year with the following article:

YAKIMA, WA – September 27, 2022  – College coaches from the College Success Foundation have been in the Yakima Valley helping disadvantaged students learn about college since 2001. Now in partnership with the Washington Student Achievement Council, they’ve expanded their college coach services to Yakima Valley College.

CSF is a nonprofit with the goal of helping underserved and low-income students get a higher education. Thanks to its WSAC partnership, it now has 25 college coaches across different Washington school campuses.

The Director of Community Relations at YVC Dustin Wunderlich said they are excited to get a college coach on their campus because it will help them achieve their goal of helping underserved students.

“This support is particularly important to under-served communities, students from low-income households [to] achieve their college dreams and that can change the trajectory of their lives,” Wunderlich said. 

According to the Region Program Director for College Success Foundation, Carolina Garza, the organization tries to connect with students from the time they are in middle school and guide them through their transitions into high school and then college.

In middle school, students are introduced to post-secondary options and in high school they get a college coach to start helping them with the college process. In college, they get a new coach.

“What that does is create that warm hand off,” Garza said. “Students have someone that’s been advocating for them in high school and now they’ve made that connection with someone that’s going to be their college coach at the local college or somewhere else.”

The organization also helps connect students with resources like financial aid, help with the application process and social/emotional support.

Since College Success Foundation is an nonprofit organization they can also help students pay for other things, like food, through emergency funds.

Students like Elvia Valdovinos Cruz have benefitted from having these services and a coach guiding them through a process they have no experience maneuvering.

Her coach’s name is Yolanda and Valdovinos Cruz said she would spend all of her free time in her coach’s office because it felt a safe space to talk about her future.

“Every time I see Yolanda, I’m like ‘you know what I’m in college because of you,'” Valdovinos Cruz said.

While she had no intentions of going to college at first, she’s glad she looked into the CSF. Now, Valdovinos Cruz is finishing up her last year of college at Heritage University. She said she encourages students to apply for the College Success Foundation.

“There’s so many things out there, so many opportunities for you to take advantage of and it’s really nice when you have someone to guide you through all that process,” Valdovinos Cruz said.