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By MELINDA SACKS / Special to the Mercury
News
single working mom Martha Resendez has big plans.
One day she hopes to open a charter school where children can experience a balance of academic excellence and free-spirited play, the way she thinks school should be structured.
Today, though, the San Jose woman is busy raising her three daughters, 11, 6 and 4, volunteering for the school site council and her community association, and working for the Altamont School District. The long hours are all geared toward saving enough money to start her second two years of college at San Jose State University, where she hopes to get a teaching credential.
A graduate of De Anza College, Resendez is ready to move ahead, thanks to hard work -- and the computer she received through a scholarship program while she was attending the community college. The fund, established four years ago through generous donations to the Wish Book, purchases computers, printers and software for low-income, single-parent students attending De Anza and Foothill colleges.
The desktop computer makes it possible for Resendez, 30, to do her volunteer and school work from home so she can also spend time with her kids. It has been instrumental in helping her get back on her feet after a broken marriage and many dead-end jobs, she says, adding, ``Who would have thought a computer could change a life?''
Resendez applied to the fund twice before she won the coveted computer scholarship. The persistence paid off.
``I had a lot of graveyard-shift jobs that were going nowhere,'' says Resendez, describing her life before college. ``I decided I had to go to school no matter what, but I was finding it really hard to get my work done before I got the computer. I'd race to the computer lab at school and wait to get online, then there was only a two-hour window I could use. It was making life so hard.''
Paisley, Resendez's 11-year-old, also has had her life changed since the arrival of the computer, which she uses for school projects and to play with the software program that allows her to be a virtual veterinarian, the job she dreams of holding when she grows up. The two younger girls also use the computer for games and occasional schoolwork.
Resendez would love to have access to the Internet, but she hasn't been able to afford the monthly fees. Wish Book support for the next year ($20 per month) would enable her and her girls to learn more about the world, she says.
Donations also would nourish the scholarship fund that is administered by the Foothill-De Anza Community Foundation. Each gift of $50 will help make sure there is enough money to continue the program.
For
more information on Foothill-De
Anza Foundation, go to
www.fhda.edu.
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