Thinking about college can be overwhelming, especially if you don't have guidance at home. At Paso Robles High School, the student group CELEBRE is filling that gap in order to push Latinas to pursue higher education.
“We are breaking kind of like the society reach of like them saying ‘you're a woman and you're Latina, you're not going to do it,’ but definitely, we are proving them wrong and showing we can do this,” said Brenda Santiago Ríos, a junior at Paso Robles High School. “You're not going to limit what I can do. Only I can limit myself.”
As a first-generation student, the club CELEBRE is helping Santiago Ríos see college as a feasible goal.
“It’s kind of rough because it's kind of like seeing the prices and everything, kind of like being scared that it's not something I can do because it was too expensive or it was kind of like too far of a goal to reach,” she added.
A feeling she shares with fellow Paso Robles High School senior Estefanía Torres.
“This is the main way that I've learned to like go to college because I don't have anyone at home who can like help me out with that kind of stuff,” Torres said.
CELEBRE means celebrate in English, but it’s an acronym for College Enrollment For Latinas Entering Bright Rewarding Educations. The club started five years ago.
“CELEBRE is a Latinas Girls College Club for SLO County,” explained CELEBRE coordinator Itzelt Santos. “We help first-generation often low-income students figure their way out to get to college, figure out a career path, and we also support their parents in learning the ins and outs of navigating higher education.”
Torres is hoping to go to Sacramento State University while Santiago Ríos has an eye on Santa Clara University.
“I think this is like high up there, but my dream school is Stanford and my dream like career is to be a lawyer,” said Michelle Flores Castillo, a senior at Paso Robles High School and member of CELEBRE.
Santiago Ríos, Torres and Flores Castillo visited Cal State San Marcos last fall as part of a CELEBRE activity.
“Being able to learn so much about the campus while we're there and kind of like walk through that gives you a really big picture of what it can be if you attend that college,” Santiago Ríos said.
There are 24 students enrolled in CELEBRE, which also serves community college students. Santos said the club is funded by the Women's Legacy Fund at The Community Foundation San Luis Obispo.
“We do fun networking games to get them out of their comfort zones. We bring in guest speakers to speak to the girls about their careers, their jobs, their stories,” Santos said.
One of the things that makes the program unique is guiding parents in the application process as well.
“One of my requirements is meeting with the student and their parent or parents one on one at least once a semester, so we can review their grades, make sure they're in the right classes if going straight to a four-year university is their goal," Santos explained. “Once they become seniors, I get a lot of help from the college counselor at Paso Robles High School. We sit down with the girls to make sure that they're filling out their college applications correctly and obviously guide them through.”
The girls said it is like a sisterhood.
“You make a lot of friends, like a very strong bond with your peers that makes you feel at home — you're family, you're with them a lot,” Santiago Ríos said. “You get to travel with them, and then the coordinators become like your older sisters that watch over you.”
“I'm pretty proud to be a Latina and I hope that I can hopefully make an impact in this in our Hispanic community and motivate other Latinas to, like, go to college and like let them know that anything is possible, you just need to put a little work into it,” Torres added.
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