Budget cuts are affecting every program no matter how small or how big they are.

The Extended Opportunities Programs and Services (EOPS) and the CARE program at Cerritos College is one program that will be greatly effected by the budget cuts for next semester.

On March 16 and 17 the two advisors and four students from the program went to Sacramento to protest the budget cuts effecting their programs.

Dr. Phil Rodriguez, EOPS director and Marcia Chaney, CARE coordinators were the two advisors that accompanied the students while in Sacramento.

The students went with Region eight, which is the region that Cerritos College belongs to as well as orange county colleges. All the students that did attend were from the EOPS/CARE program statewide.

There were a total of 60 students along with advisors that went from Region eight. Region eight paid for transportation and lodging for all of the region eight students.

There were about three to four students that went from each school. “We had four students from the program go and talk to education representatives of the senators and we did talk to one senator while we were there,” said Sondra McCook, EOPS/CARE student.

During the meetings with the representatives the students talked about how the program can’t afford to be cut.

Rocio Torres is an EOPS student and she did the opening with the representatives and gave them some statistics and an overview about how the budget would effect them.

Sarah Navarrette, is an EOPS/CARE student talk about her situation and how the cuts would affect her personally.

Nancy Walle, is an EOPS/CARE student, which also spoke to the representatives about her situation and how it would affect her life.

McCook also talked to the representatives and presented them with the petitions that the students of Cerritos College signed. There was 2000 signatures on the petitions to protest the budget.

Assemblymember, Mervyn Dymally from the 52nd District was the only Assemblymember that the students were able to talk to. Dymally is the chair on the select committee for community colleges.

“He was really nice to us and he was familiar with Cerritos College and was very supportive in not cutting the budget,” McCook said.The students did not take part in the march to Capital, but was there for the rally.

There were an estimate 8-9 thousand students and advisors that participated in the rally.

Many students went on stage to give speeches. “I tried to get up there on stage, but they were getting ready for the speakers that planned on talking to us,” McCook said.

Also they invited 80 students to come into the Capital to hear a senator speak about the budget cuts and against Governor Gray Davis, Torres and McCook were apart of that 80 students.

The students from Cerritos College also went to Davis’s office and presented his secretary with business cards and explained to her why they were there.

EOPS/CARE students are not looking forward to the budget cuts that will be going in effect next semester.

Currently, the EOPS program serves about 1,050 students and with the budget cuts they are looking at cutting 450 students out of the program. And CARE program will go from 100 students down to 50.

The EOPS program serves students who need financial aid. The program helps students get help with their education and grants for books. CARE program is for single parents that are head of household and are on CalWorks.

This program helps students with emergency meal vouchers, gas cards so students can get to school, workshops on parenting, stress and time management.

They also help the students with childcare so that the students can have time to study for their classes.

“They really need to keep these programs. With the budget cuts I don’t know how they expect us to live life and move up in the world, if they keep on pushing us down,” McCook said.

For McCook the budget cuts is really hard to grasp. “The program has been very beneficial for a lot of people. I don’t think I could have done it (school) without the program,” McCook said.