On Thursday, March 25, 2021, the Peralta Colleges Foundation held a virtual event and auction March Madness: Race Toward Building Careers. The incredibly successful event raised $30,000 to be used for student scholarships.
The Peralta Colleges Foundation is committed to supporting equitable access to education and career development opportunities for the 30,000 diverse and predominantly low-income students enrolled at Peralta Community College District campuses – Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland, the College of Alameda, and Berkeley City College.
For this event, the Foundation invited local partners to support the foundation’s mission to raise necessary funds for its annual student scholarship program and critical funds for emergency student mini-grants.
Local partners and sponsors of the event included: San Francisco 49ers, Golden State Warriors, Oakland Roots, Oakland Athletics, Eat Learn Play Foundation, T-Mobile, East Bay Municipal Utility District, NetExperts, Channel Lumber, Potter Electric, and more.
It's not too late to donate to March Madness if you want to help students at the Peralta Colleges! Click here to make your donation.
In addition to the auction, the event included amazing performances by the College of Alameda’s Professor Henderson’s Gospel group and the high energy Laney College Department of Dance. We also heard from current and former Peralta students who have received scholarships from the Peralta Colleges Foundation.
“Peralta has supported me in a lot of ways. They helped me think about what major I really wanted to pursue and what school I wanted to apply too,” said Gregory Singleton of Berkeley City College. “This scholarship helped me a pay for school supplies, text books and for me personally, gas to get to school. I’m really thankful for how much the scholarship helped me.”
The Foundation has supported so many students like Gregory. We also heard from Merritt College student Kiara Simpson, Laney student Abel Villalobos, and BCC alum Rudrani Ghosh who each shared their appreciation for the scholarship support.
We also heard from LaNiece Jones, Executive Director of the Peralta Colleges Foundation, who expressed gratitude to the sponsors, donors, faculty and staff, and all who help create career opportunities for students.
The Foundation disburses close to $180,000 in student scholarships. Since the pandemic, they have raised and disbursed over $250,000 from a newly established COVID-19 Emergency Crisis Relief Fund supported by faculty, alumni and community members for mini-grants for students who experienced job loss or reduction.
To watch a recording of the event, click here.
