Dear Students:
Our scholarships are awarded to returning students, those who have graduated from high school at least five years ago, and those who have had considerable difficulties in their personal lives. These difficulties have often prevented them from continuing their education after high school. In writing your personal essay, make sure to emphasize what difficulties you have had, especially those that have prevented you from attending PCC (or another college) at an earlier time. And be sure to have someone proofread your essay before turning it in.
Best wishes,
Alan Lamson, Chair
PCC Retirees Association Scholarship Committee
PCC Retirees Scholarship Fund

Alan Lamson with scholarship winner Juliana Salas
This year our Retirees Association has awarded $2,000 scholarships to nine students. All of these students have faced difficulties in their lives. One of this year’s recipients, Juliana Salas, has faced more than most. She was raised in foster care since the age of seven and was abused by her paternal grandparents for four years. In her teen years, she was tossed from home to home, viewed as a troubled teen that no one wanted.
After high school she tried five times to go to college, but each time she found herself having to quit to help her ailing grandmother. Then after her grandmother died, she was finally able to enroll at PCC. She recalls that a “fire was lit under her” to finish school. She put her “face in [her] books” and tried not to think about family problems. Several family members had recently died after her grandmother’s passing.
Her housing situation has always been unstable. At times she slept in friend’s cars and rented rooms. Occasionally, she came to campus early to catch a nap before class. But even with unstable housing, the fire under her pushed her to take four, sometimes five classes, and she has maintained a good grade point average.
Juliana still faces unstable housing but is well on her way to finishing at PCC and transferring to a four-year college. While sitting next to each other at our awards luncheon, she remembered that a few years ago she slept in a nearby church behind the University Club, where our awards luncheon was held. In thinking about her future, she recalls that her grandmother once said that she would be somebody someday. And that’s what she plans to do. Our scholarship is a vote of confidence that she will.
Those who "adopt" a student will be invited to our scholarship luncheon where you will sit with your adopted student and introduce him/her to other donors and our Retirees' board.
To contribute you can send a check to the PCC Foundation at 1570 East Colorado Blvd., Pasadena 91106. Or you can contribute on-line at give.pasadena.edu. Select the amount you want to donate then designate PCC Retirees Association Scholarship Fund. Or you can phone the Foundation office at (626) 585-7065 to contribute using your credit card. You can arrange for payments to be made over time.
Many thanks for your generosity,
Alan Lamson, Chair PCC Retirees' Scholarship
Committee and Committee members-Mikki Bolliger, Harry Kawahara, Kathy Rodarte, Pat
Savoie