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."

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