22 Apr 2012

Puente Concludes 2012 Tax Season

Fifty-nine South Coast residents received free assistance with preparing their tax returns, thanks to Puente volunteer tax preparers Lary Lawson, Robert Johnson and Jan Trusso. Puente helped participants receive $66,614 in refunds from the federal government and $6,994 from the State of California.

Puente was one of 29 tax sites that worked with the programmatic and financial support of Earn It! Keep It! Save It! (EKS) is a coalition of Bay Area organizations that provides free tax preparation to households earning less than $50,000 a year. The program was sponsored by United Way of the Bay Area.

16 Apr 2012

Pescadero High School Students Visit Santa Clara and San Jose State Universities

Twenty-nine students from Pescadero visited Santa Clara and San Jose State Universities on Thursday April 13, 2012 as part of Puente’s youth employment and leadership program.

At Santa Clara University, the group was toured by Rogelio González, SCU alumnus. Rogelio showed the group different university departments. He also shared  his own story as a young, migrant man going to communty college and transferring to Santa Clara on a scholarship. González graduated in 2009.

Later, the group went to San Jose State University.  Liz Figueroa, Project Coordinator at CommUniverCity guided the students around campus, talking about the programs available and shared some of the rich history of the university.

For an hour the group met wtih a panel of students of the EOP program and support services staff at the Student Services Center.

To conclude the visit to SJSU, the group was greeted by Prof. Mike Conniff, chair of Global Studies and Prof. Anne Fountain from the World Languages and Literatures Program.

We are very thankful  to the staff, students and alumni of these universities. This program was partially funded by Cal Humanities, San Mateo County Workforce Investment Board, TomKat,  and Puente.