damian trujillo: hello, and welcome to "comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo. today, nbc bay area is giving away grants, thousands of dollars in grants, perhaps, to your organization on your "comunidad del valle." ♪♪♪ cc by aberdeen captioning 1-800-688-6621 www.abercap.com damian: we begin with a very important and long-running educational program out of evergreen valley college in south san jose. it's called the enlace program, been around since the early '80s. with me here on "comunidad del valle" are susana ramirez and mayra garcia who are instrumental in running that program. thank you, ladies, so much for being on the show. susan ramirez: thank you. damian: all right, so who flipped the coin?

who's gonna tell us--give us a brief history about enlace? mayra garcia: i can go ahead and do that. so again, mayra garcia, i'm the enlace program coordinator, former evc and enlace student. so, enlace has been around for almost 40 years, as you said, in the 1980s. we are an academic program here on campus that serves chicanx/latinx students. our focus is in academics, so we do the core, which is math, science, and english. we have a mentoring community, mentoring component, which is composed of our community members. and then we also have counseling resources for our students. so, as our chair likes to call it, we are a little college within a college. susana, do you want to add anything about our mentoring project? susana ramirez: sure. my name is dr. susana ramirez. and for me, and i start off with sharing i am a doctor because

as i tell my students, you know, there's not a lot of people who look like me, who look like many of us here with those titles. and it's important, right, that we expand who we think about when we hear these words. in terms of the mentorship program with which is the heart of the enlace program, you know, we invite over, you know, 50 professionals from all different fields to guide our students through--many first-generation students through the college process, you know? and yeah, i'm excited to be part of this program and support students with mentorship since mentorship was so instrumental to my own journey. damian: yeah, and when you talk about mentors, you're talking about pairing these students, many of whom are first-generation college students, and pairing them up with those, you know, either in banks, or in lawyers' offices, or whatnot, so they can get, not only the--they can get a 3d

perspective, if you will. they're right there hands on. susana: yes, we're talking about professionals in many fields. although recently, recently, we're looking at adding better veterinarians too. we have some students expressing interest. but yes, we pair students with a mentor during their time at evergreen, and they meet with them, have an interview, ask questions. and these mentors, as many of you know, are not just for this moment. mentors are for life, right? and that is the commitment that enlace offers to our evergreen valley students who are part of the program. damian: yeah, how do you think, mayra, the students walk out? if it's two or three years after they enroll at evergreen and they're in the enlace program, how do you think they walk out compared to the way they walked in? mayra: i would say different, a better version of themselves. i wouldn't say a new, a new version, but just a better version. they are more equipped with the skills needed to succeed at the

four-year university as many of our students transfer to a four-year university. they understand that it's going to be different, but they know that there are resources that their campus can offer. so, we have better tools. and it's usually the success is higher in them being able to finish at the four-year university. damian: and it's kind of like a jolt, right? the enlace program gives them a jolt so that if they're a little unsure, "no, here, here's a clear path for you." mayra: exactly. and so, we always tell our students, "we're here to support you in whatever your goals are." so, whether that is to, you know, transfer to a four-year university or receive a degree and get right into the work field, it's totally up to them to tell us what their needs are so that we can support them and prepare them to succeed once they're out in what we call the real world. damian: yeah, well, this is the enlace program out of evergreen valley college in san jose.

we have a web address. it's a little long. so, what i did actually is, i googled the "enlace program evergreen valley college," and it took me right to the address, but we're gonna show you that address anyway. there it is on the screen there. the enlace program been around since the early 1980s and still going strong. we'll be back and talk more about enlace when we continue. behold...unlimited wireless for only 30 bucks. that's pretty cool, but you know what's cooler? saving up to 400 bucks! exactly. and if we really want to take it up a notch... get all that and nationwide 5g included. oh nice shot, send that to me. i got you. break free from the big three and get connected to the nations most reliable 5g network. get the new samsung galaxy s22 series on xfinity mobile. and right now, save big with up to $750 off a new samsung device. switch today.

valley college in san jose here on "comunidad del valle." and i mean, i remember meeting dr. mauro chavez and victor garza, those who were the foundation, those who founded enlace. and doctor, it's great to see that it's still going strong with the great leadership such as yours and mayra's and everybody else who's still involved. susana: thank you. damian: yeah. damian: tell us, do you think the vision that these pioneers had, that it's coming to fruition, that they're accomplishing what they wanted to accomplish? mayra: i definitely do think so.

i think it's gone beyond what they envisioned. you know, we keep expanding. who would have thought that we would be offering online hybrid courses now, that our counseling services would be online, which has been more successful? we're able to reach more students than we have before. so, i definitely do agree that it's more than what they've imagined, right, and we only hope to keep on growing. damian: and so, you enroll in evergreen valley college and look up the enlace program and then, boom, you're set on this course to success. is that as easy as it is? mayra: it is easy as it sounds. believe it or not, a lot of our students, it's by word of mouth. so, you know, students, former students sharing to their family, to their friends about our program, and that's how they reached out. but yes, it's easy as that. if you look up the enlace program on our website,

you reach out to us, and we can help you schedule an appointment with our counselor so that way you can get started with your damian: and even, doctor, even within the organization, there is opportunities for leadership. you have the enlace student association, the enlace honor society. so, within the organization itself, there's opportunities to grow and to see, to meet your potential. susana: right, which, you know, i even include this in our--in my syllabus like fostering leadership within our students is also really important on top of the academics part, right, like learning skills for writing college essays and all of that, but also were preparing them to be leaders. and that's what many of these opportunities offer for our students as well. damian: and is there a point where you're recruiting mentors as well? i know that, you know, you want to recycle and bring in new--tell us about the recruitment of mentors

and the need, if there is one? susana: yes, that's actually our current mission, to expand our mentorship pool. you know, we already have a very strong pool, and we want to continue to strengthen and recruit mentors into the program. thank you for sharing and reminding folks, yes. damian: no, absolutely. so, all the professionals out there, make sure you sign up and become a mentor to some of these worte. and we're talking about first-generation students. let me go to mayra here. we're talking about first-generation students, are these students maybe who need a little help in refresher courses, or are these who are ready to succeed? mayra: it's a mix of both. we don't, with our program, we do not look at gpa. we do not look at citizenship. we don't look at things like that. so, we have a mix of all students, those who are already at the college level when they're

entering and those who may need a little bit more support who are currently taking esl courses. so, it's a mix. we have students who, you know, may need a little bit more support in math and all that. so yeah, it's all kinds of students that we want here in our program. damian: all right, we have about 30 seconds, doctor. any final thoughts before we let you go? susana: mentorship is the heart of enlace program and the heart of so many of our lives. and i feel really proud to be part of this program. and i think and look forward to more folks joining this really important work that we're doing here at evergreen valley college. thank you. damian: all right. it's a great work. thank you all so much for being on the show and honoring, continuing the legacy of the late dr. mauro chavez and victor garza. thank you so much and good luck. both: thank you. damian: all right, thank you. and again, enlace program at evergreen valley college in san jose. and you can google them or there is a web address

on the screen for you. up next here on comunidad del valle," the hispanic foundation of silicon valley and nbc bay area grants in the thousands of dollars. you don't want to miss this. stay with us. okay jack, these recipes aren't gonna create themselves. it's crunch time! but first, it's heinz dip & crunch time! i'm dipping into the latest innovation by combining heinz secret sauce and potato chip crunchers for the perfect bite. my heinz dip & crunch bacon cheeseburger combo. only at jack in the box.

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that's meant to be dipped into heinz secret sauce and potato chip crunchers. it's the heinz dip and crunch bacon cheeseburger. i'm gonna dip out and get one now! my heinz dip & crunch bacon cheeseburger combo. only at jack in the box. my heinz dip & crunch bacon cheeseburger combo. it's a grant program and it's worth $10,000, $15,000, $25,000 to $50,000. with me on the screen also is former san jose mayor ron gonzales. he's the president and ceo of the hispanic foundation of silicon valley, a recipient of one of these project innovation grants, and he's here to tell us all about it. mayor, welcome back to the "comunidad del valle." ron gonzales: well, thank you, damian. it's always great to be with you and the "comunidad del valle" program. damian: thank you. and next time, hopefully when we do this, we'll do it in person. hopefully we'll reopen the studio, and we won't have to do this virtual stuff anymore. ron: it'll be like old times. damian: yeah, no, we miss that. before we get into the grant program, tell us about the hispanic foundation, kind of a state of the foundation, if you will. ron: sure, yeah, the state of the foundation is very healthy.

despite the two years of pandemic experience we've all been through and our community's been through, our foundation is solid as possible, you know, as it's ever been. our foundation now is in its 33rd year of existence here in silicon valley. i've been the president and ceo for the last 12 and a half years. and we continue to make incredible progress in all of our education excellence programs, working with latinx students, latinx parents, families, nearly 2,000 every school year are the numbers that we serve from both santa clara and san mateo counties. we also have an excellent latino board leadership academy program. and we're just about ready to get the research started on our next silicon valley latino report card, which, as you know, measured the quality of life for latinos in five areas, education, health, financial stability,

housing, and the environment. so, we've had a incredible two years of a lot of hard work. we've seen a lot of pain in our community, given this pandemic, which just, you know, reinforces our need to work harder and continue to meet the needs of our community. damian: and we're looking at the video that you provided us. so, we're looking at the parent--the program you have for parents, for them to succeed. we're looking at the program you have for students, for them to succeed. you kind of run the gamut. this is multigenerational here. ron: you know, our education excellence program, damian, is focused on a cradle to career strategy. we want to be eventually involved in the lives of latino students and their parents from cradle to career. now, we're not down to cradle yet, but we're starting with them in the third grade with after-school programming around math and science literacy. we work with them through middle school, through high school, and to and through college. we now are supporting over 400 latinx college students who are all majoring in a stem degree, that's,

of course, science, technology, engineering, and math. because the ultimate goal with our scholarship program is to increase the number of latino employees in the high-tech industry. and studies show that unfortunately, those numbers don't come anywhere close to the percentage of our general--in the general population. in silicon valley, latinos make up about 27%, 28% of the general population, but only about 3% of the high-tech workforce. so, we're really working hard to increase those numbers because those jobs are the ones that pay, they have benefits, and those are the kinds of things that our young people are gonna need if they're gonna want to maintain a residency here in silicon valley with the high cost of living, the high cost of living in silicon valley. damian: yeah, our community needs that kind of advocacy, and it's great to see that the forefront of the hispanic foundation of silicon valley. well, you're the recipient of one of these project innovation grants. it's thousands of dollars, and but you have to be--you have

to separate yourself from the pack and be innovative. that's what in the title. what separated you from the pack, mayor? ron: i think the thing that separates us from the pack of a lot of really good nonprofits that are in the education space is our incredible and deep work with parents. we have probably the largest parent education and engagement academy program possibly in the state of california. we, you know, over about eight years now, we have trained, educated, and engaged over 5,000 latino parents on how to be supportive of their child's education, how can they be an advocate for their child at their child's school, in their child's classroom. you know, a good percentage of the parents we work with are first-generation immigrants, and they don't have that knowledge of how the education system works here in the united states, what their role as a parent, and most importantly, how to do that role. so, through our academies, we--it's a ten-week program that trains them in all those kinds of things.

and we just have all kinds of data that show the impact when one of our parents graduates from our program and becomes an advocate for their child. the student's performance increases, the student sees their parents are interested and engaged in their child, in their own education, and just good things start to happen. so, i think that's a big thing that divides us from others. and then the other thing that divides us is our continue to focus on doing just a few things and doing them really, really well and deep. so, as i said before, you know, we start working with latinx students when they're in the third grade and don't finish with them until they graduate from college and get out in a science, technology, engineering, or math position in the industry. so, the continuity, the performance, the measured impact on changing people's lives, you know, we have thousands, hundreds of people and students that we've helped change the trajectory of their life. and you know full well, and i think your audience knows full

well, that when you can take that first-generation college student, the first person in the family to go to college and graduate, that changes, not only the trajectory of their lives, but their entire family's lives because studies show that when that first person graduates, they usually drag behind them some siblings, some cousins, other family members, who look at that person and say, "well, if he or she can graduate from college, so can i because i'm a lot smarter than they are." that's a good thing that happens, a good thing. it's a generational thing that's starting to take place. damian: one hundred percent. from cradle to career, i love that. well, if you think your agency qualifies for one of these project innovation grants, again, this is by nbc bay area and telemundo, $10,000, $25,000, $50,000, we're gonna show you that web address so you can log on and apply. and remember, you have to separate yourself from the pack and do something that's innovative. that's why it's called project innovation. again, by nbc bay area and telemundo. we'll back with former san jose mayor ron gonzales

when we continue, stay with us.

with former san jose mayor ron gonzales and current president and ceo of the hispanic foundation of silicon valley, a recipient of these project innovation grants by nbc bay area and telemundo. before we get to your parent engagement program, mayor, talk about the the coding for students and how that's helping, again, create the future techies of silicon valley. ron: absolutely, so, girls who code is a national nonprofit, and we're delighted that for this valley, for santa clara county, we're their preferred nonprofit to work with. and that's because we've been extremely successful, in offering these coding workshops to seventh and eighth grade latina students. now, try to imagine your child, maybe some of you out there have a seventh or eighth grader in middle school who has no interest in technology, has no interest in computers, other than playing computer games. these classes teach them how they,

how they can actually program code for a computer program. and the program has been a tremendous success. we've shown that 85% of the students that go through our coding programs, these young women have their minds changed about what they're capable of doing with technology. and many times, they change their own perspective of what they want to do in their lives. and the other great thing about these workshops, they're led by graduates from our latinos and technology scholarship program. so, these are, most cases, mostly are young women, recent college grads with an engineering degree, computer science degree, and now they're in a screen, hopefully someday in person, in front of a classroom training other young latinas sometimes from the same neighborhood they grew up in and the same middle school they graduated from, in how to do computer programming.

can you imagine where we would all be if we had something like that ten years ago? i mean, i just have incredible optimism for these young women and their capabilities in the future to change the workforce in the high-tech sector. damian: and that's called innovation, and that's why your foundation was a recipient of one of these grants. now, if we can finish off with the parent engagement, you wanted to expand on that. ron: well, one of the things about the parent engagement program that was very interesting was, you know, before covid, everything was in person. all of our programming after school for the students, evenings for the parents, saturday morning workshops, even summertime programming, was done on a school campus in your neighborhood school. so, you know, prior to covid, the parents who participated in our parent education academies would come home from work, you know, they would race to get dinner on the table, and then they would race off to the local school. so, when covid hit and we couldn't do in-person,

we were deeply concerned because we had no prior experience with particularly our parents and their use of technology and whether or not they would keep up their attendance, keep up their participation. and we found just the opposite. it was just delightful. our parents now have the process of coming home while they're cooking dinner, or while they're driving home, participating in the workshops via their smartphones. about 80% of our parents participate in these programs through their smartphone. so, that's just a little note to technologists that the notion that latinos are not using technology is just not true. in fact, studies show that we're--our community's the quickest to latch on to new forms of technology. and i would say that one of the challenges we face now is as we could get back to an environment where we can do more in-person activities, you know, one of the things we'll have to look at is, do we go back to in-person? do we stay with virtual? or do we do a hybrid doing both?

those are the kinds of things. but again, using technology in a different way, in a way we hadn't expected to use it, has resulted in an incredible number of more parents being able to participate in these workshops. damian: and look at what happens when you give either parents or students just the tools to kind of let them realize what their potential is. we have about 30 seconds, mayor. any final thoughts before we let you go? ron: well, i look forward to coming back to talk to you about our hispanic foundation ball. after a two-year virtual presentation, we're gonna be back in person october 15. so everybody, mark your calendars. we're gonna be at the new signia hotel in downtown san jose. we all know it as the old fairmont. that's gonna be its new name. but we are just delighted with the support we have from community members, from the business community, from corporations, from individuals who understand the importance of our foundation and our ability to impact people's lives and to improve the quality of life for others

in our community. thank you, damian. damian: thank you, and as you know, mayor, i do owe you one admission still. i snuck into the very first--back then it was hispanic charity ball, and i haven't paid that. so, put that on my tab, if you will. ron: we have an invoice for you growing with interest. [laughing] damian: mayor, thank you so much for your help. ron: thank you, damian. damian: all right. damian: and again, the hispanic foundation of silicon valley is a recipient of one of these project innovation grants. there is a web address so you can also tell us how your agency is doing things differently, innovative, that can separate you from the pack and earn one of these grants worth $10,000, $25,000, even up to $50,000. there's a website for more information. well, if you'd like to get a hold of us here on "comunidad del valle," you can follow me on twitter. my handle is @newsdamian. on instagram, it is @newsdamiantrujillo. we thank you once again for sharing part of your sunday with us on "comunidad del valle." we're gonna leave you with a little bit of sapo and the song is called "sapo's montuno." we'll see you next week.

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[music playing] i'm sara gore, and this is open house. in honor of black history month, we are inside homes that celebrate inspiration, innovation, and of course, style. we are with these all-around design creatives from la, chicago, and new york. the key word to this space is luxury. i mean, everything in this space is custom, everything. i'm very inspired by dutch and italian designers. and that's how i've designed my home. like any good artist home, we're surrounded by what we do. but before all that, we are starting off at this industrial style live/work loft in jersey city that mixes the regal and the whimsical every step of the way. lf and it really helped me define my aesthetic.