Monterey County Community Service & Support Digest

Despite an influx of money to counter learning loss during the pandemic, English language arts and math test scores remain low.

With the growing use of AI, campus officials are trying to set clear guidelines for college application essays.

The facts of climate change can lead to feelings of hopelessness and despair. Some California activists are creating communities for people to talk about those feelings.

The CPUC is considering a rule that would gut the payments that solar panels on apartment buildings receive, and many housing groups are blazing mad about it.

After a historic decline in community college enrollment during the pandemic, students are returning to school again, according to the state’s most recent data. But students between the ages of 20 and 30 are lagging behind.

Several anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers are advertising abortion pill reversal. California Attorney General Rob Bonta calls the claims false advertising that mislead vulnerable patients.

A last-minute legislative deal would raise pay for California health care workers while giving medical providers a guarantee that they won’t have to battle local measures on employee compensation.

Thanks to a $200,000 state grant, the nonprofit Alliance on Aging will develop an action plan for addressing the needs of senior and disabled citizens, particularly in the Salinas Valley.

A new law allows community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees, an option for students unable to attend a four-year institution. But California State University officials are objecting to many of those proposed programs.

Last year California began providing free school lunches to all TK-12 students, regardless of family income. Now, with an influx of state and federal money, school districts are revamping kitchens and training staff so they can provide freshly made, healthy meals.

Frustration runs deep among medical cannabis patients and advocates who say the commercial market created by Proposition 64 in 2016 isn’t meeting their needs.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will spend $4.5 million on free legal services for undocumented workers involved in state investigations of wage theft or other labor violations. The lawyers can help with their immigration cases.

California health officials say granting the licenses prevents the eviction of hundreds of residents from their homes and provides oversight provisions, including a two-year monitoring period.

The spending change would prioritize housing for homeless people, which children's mental health advocates fear will cut their funding.

KSQD, the community radio station run by Natural Bridges Media, successfully fundraised to purchase two new radio licenses.

The scholarship was established through George P. Shultz’s family and donors who wanted to honor his legacy.

The SPCA Monterey County Wildlife Center partnered with The Tree Man—a Salinas-based tree service company—to install a heavy-duty nest designed by the wildlife rescue team after the young hawk’s nest was damaged.

An estimated 170,000 Indigenous Mexican farmworkers live in California, contributing to its booming economy. Researchers say 6 in 10 farmworkers in the state are Indigenous. State and local officials have yet to fully include this growing population into their planning, often relying on nonprofits to communicate basic information.

HOW, which stands for "Helping One Woman," is now a national organization dedicated to providing support to help women navigate their journey of devastating difficulty, illness, or loss.

CSUMB students are now able to get a bag of free produce from the Food Bank of Monterey County on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month.

“There is a camp over there that was evacuated by the police department, but no one was moving because there was no place for them to move to,” Salvation Army Lieutenant Maria Romero said.

For more than 55 years, Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County has launched programs to help people experiencing poverty across Santa Cruz County and the Pájaro Valley, including homelessness prevention, employment and mentoring services for youth and adults, immigration legal services, and crisis response.

Political, community and veterans leaders in Monterey County came together to make an impassioned case for the need to have a new veterans home built in the Monterey Bay area to serve aging, disabled, and homeless veterans.

CSU Monterey Bay students are tutoring local K-12 students as part of the state’s new #CaliforniansForAll College Corps program — a program that aims to reduce student debt while tackling several key issues in the state.

For those living in wildfire-ravaged regions, help might be on the way. Covered California recently announced an application window for victims of wildfires, as well as those who live in fire-prone regions, to apply for assistance.

Restaurateur Marvin Green learned that a quarter of adults in Monterey County don’t have access to steady nutrition. That made him wonder: How might he find partners to help underwrite feeding the underfed?

Every year, the city organizes its Free Summer Lunch and Snack Program, providing healthy meals and snacks to children under 18 years old. While hundreds of families benefit from this program every year, this summer is different.

When Dr. Olga Padron Lopez arrived in Monterey County, she and her colleagues realized there was a language barrier for Indigenous residents of Greenfield. The family doctor has been learning Triqui de Copala, a language spoken in and around San Juan Copala in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Donovan Corbett, a 37-year-old groundskeeper at Carmel Unified School District, recently returned from six weeks of volunteering in Poland and Ukraine.

Dr. Merrianne Burtch established BirchBark Foundation to assist people facing financial obstacles in caring for pets. “The vision driving our organization,” she said, “is that financial hardship should never cause the loss of any family pet.”

Recent San Diego State graduate Fabiola Moreno Ruelas of Gonzales was seriously injured in a car accident and received a settlement of $29,000 at age 18. Rather than spend the money on herself or her family, she used the money to start her own scholarship fund, managed by the Rotary Club.

As the new Monterey County chapter director for the National Coalition Building Institute, Victoria Mills is excited to continue to fight for equity and inclusion. The Monterey chapter has been in the community for nearly 30 years.