Veterans to get some extra perks at local community colleges

Two grants will allow the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District to expand services and outreach to the schools’ nearly 1,700 veterans and their dependents.

Both Grossmont and Cuyamaca have each secured $200,000 in state grants from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office to help vets. In addition, both colleges have plans in place to nearly triple the size of their veterans resource centers.

According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the California legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal and policy advisor, California is home to about 1.8 million veterans. California Community Colleges enroll nearly 80,000 veterans and active-duty service members each year.

Spokeswoman Anne Krueger at the Grossmont-Cuyamaca district said that more than 1,100 veterans are enrolled at Grossmont College and 562 enrolled last year at Cuyamaca College.

District Veterans Counselor Maria Martinez.said that the Grossmont College grant will pay for a veteran program specialist, who will provide operational support for the Veterans Resource Center and coordinate events and activities to help keep veterans on track and involved.

Grossmont is also in the planning stages of building a 3,400-square-foot Veterans Resource Center. The center will have a large computer lab and quiet commons area, a study center, meeting room, counselors offices, a lounge and an outdoor patio. The new center is scheduled to open in 2021.

At Cuyamaca College, the grant is paying for a part-time veterans resource center coordinator, several new computers, a food pantry for veterans and their families, and an expanded textbook library. It will also fund a veterans “academic survival kit,” veterans counselor Osvaldo Torres said, which comes complete with a flash drive, calculator, stationery, and pens, pencils and highlighters.

Cuyamaca is also expanding its Veterans Resource Center from 870 to 2,487 square feet. Construction is set to begin in the Spring of 2019. Veterans services will be housed in a bungalow near the library during the construction.

Krueger said that besides the veterans resource centers, those who have served in the military have access to priority registration, tutoring, specialized counselors and more.

More than 90 of the 114 California community colleges have a dedicated veterans resource center, and the $400,000 in grants recently awarded to Grossmont and Cuyamaca were among the $8.5 million in funding approved by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors this fall.

karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com