Leanese West
Student Spotlight (2020)
Leanese West is a student at Norco College. She moved from Dayton, Ohio with her two
daughters and after getting her high school diploma decided to go to college. During
the pandemic, she became homeless and shares her story of how Norco College helped
her during that difficult time:
"My name is Leanese West. I am a 31-year-old first-time college student. I am double
majoring in Sociology and Communication, Media and Language. My hometown is Dayton,
Ohio. I moved to California about three years ago and I obtained my high school diploma
about two years ago. And then, right after getting my diploma, I came to Norco College.
My kids were definitely motivation behind coming to college again, just to kind of
show them, like, if I can do it you can do it. But I just wanted more out of life
and I know that starts with a college education."
"The challenges I faced here as a student were me and my two daughters becoming homeless
during the pandemic, and just having the school there. I reached out to somebody in
another program that I learned about here called CalWORKs, and she was able to reach
out to the dean. The dean was able to help me and my daughters with housing so that
you know we weren't sleeping in our car we weren't we actually um you know I was able
to continue with school."
"I was able to make sure that, you know, me and my daughters had a safe place to sleep,
so that it was definitely instrumental as far as, just that help, because I truly
didn't know what we were going to do. And reaching out pretty much changed everything,
and it was, and it definitely all started because of Norco College. So I'm forever
grateful for that but... The students here will be people who graduate to do bigger
things and it'll one day be for their potential... kids or grandkids... so it's like
investing in the future."