Monterey Park (CA) – Over three hundred students, community leaders, faculty, and staff, attended East Los Angeles College’s (ELAC) “Transforming Lives” Annual Giving Campaign kickoff celebration. The event was part of a global celebration on “Giving Tuesday” and included the premiere of three short films and several panels of student testimonials addressing challenges, far beyond the cost of textbooks or tuition, directly impacting their ability to complete their educational goals. These challenges include housing, clothing, transportation and food insecurity.
Two of the event highlights included a presentation of two major donations of $25,000 and $10,000 to kick start the annual campaign. The first donation of $25,000 was a donation by ELAC‘s Faculty Chair of the Physics Department, Dr. Viken Kiledjian, in the honor of his late wife, Anna Kiledjian, establishing the Anna Kiledjian Scholarship. During an emotional speech, Dr. Kiledjian celebrated the life of Anna Kiledjian Galstyan who lost her life to cancer at the age of 36. The scholarship is to encourageELAC students explore science as it relates to cancer research either in a hospital or research setting. During the event, Dr. Kiledjian donated an additional $1,000 to the “Transforming Lives” campaign. The second donation of $10,000 was donated by JC & Associates Accounting Firm Partner and current ELAC Foundation Board Director, Mr. Josh Chung. Approximately $45,000 in total has been raised to date.
“We truly appreciate every one of our campaign committee members,volunteers and donors and look forward to keeping the campaign momentum going into 2018,” said Paul De La Cerda, ELAC Foundation.
The event participants and supporters included: CA State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, ELAC President Marvin Martinez, Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) Chancellor Dr. Francisco Rodriguez, LACCD Board of Trustees Member Scott Svonkin, City of Montebello Treasurer and ELAC Foundation Board Director Ashod Mooradian, City of San Gabriel Councilmember Chin Ho Liao and hundreds of faculty, staff, community leaders and ELAC students. “When we look after every member of our community, we make the community as a whole stronger. When we support our students at East LA College to succeed, we are helping the whole community to succeed. I thank all who generously supported the Transforming Lives campaign and congratulate the entire ELAC community for the success of their kickoff celebration,” said Anthony Rendon, Speaker of CA State Assembly.
According to a recent
ELAC ASU poll of
ELAC students, 70% of students at East Los Angeles College (
ELAC) have experienced hunger or food insecurity as students on campus. Furthermore, 42.6% of students at
ELACbelieve that their success as students is affected because of their hunger/food insecurity, and 67.7% of
ELAC students feel that
ELAC needs to work on providing programs to tackle student hunger/food insecurity. For more information or to make a donation to the campaign please click here:
Transform a Life Today!
