Door bell rings...
Sweet kid trying to sell newspaper subscriptions.
I feel bad, I don't want the newspaper and plus I don't know where all my cash is crumpled up.. maybe in my car? We chat for a while, I ask him where he is from and find out he is from JFK High School in Richmond, he is a senior and he likes to play football.
Poor kid has a rip in his football jersey and is stuck selling magazine subscriptions in Marin County hoping to catch a break...
He starts talking about college tuition and how Chevron (before the fire in Richmond) used to pay for his football fees and promised to pay for his college but stopped paying after saying "they don't have enough money to pay for it because of the fire at the refinery".
I tell him that sounds strange considering they are a multinational, multibillion dollar corporation profiting from.. well. The entirety of Mother Earth's oil deposits.
Poor kid just kind of laughs sadly and thanks me for my time. I ask him if he has heard of the Pell grant or all the other free and easy to get funding for low income college students. He hadn't... I tell him to remember the words Pell Grant and have a good day and he moves on to other door bells and probably gets some slammed in his face as usual.
I am about to go back to writing papers and I stop and think... ah, what the hell. I grab as much cash as I find and search for the websites of Pell Grant, Cal Grant, FAFSA and write it all down including my email address. I find him outside again after having made all the rounds of the doors and the door slammings. I hand him an envelope with the paper and the little cash I found.
I ask him why he hasn't heard of the Pell Grant, I mean you hardly have to be a good student to get it and it pays for everything -- the only requirement is that you are low income.
You are low income right?
"Yeah."
Isn't there anyone at your school telling you about this?
He says "No, we don't have no one telling us anything. The only thing they tell us is that if we get perfect grades maybe we can try to get into Harvard and Harvard will pay for us. Chevron used to pay for me but now they say they can't. They don't think about kids like me, kids that now have to knock on doors and get doors slammed on them"
Maybe you should go knock on the CEO of Chevron's door.
"He would for sure slam it in my face. They don't think about kids like me"
So no one is telling low-income graduating high school students in Richmond about the grants that are actually available to them? They are just saying Oops can't get into Harvard? Well you can't go to San Jose State.
"Nope, I had no idea about this, is it going to go away like the Chevron scholarship? I want to go to San Jose State if I go for football or if I can't go to college for football I want to go to Cal Poly because they have a good engineering program"
No it is a federal grant and it could pay for you to go to San Jose State or any state school easy. What do you want to study?
"Mechanical engineering"
Oh so Chevron stopped paying for you but maybe you will work for them one day as an engineer.
-- insert big smile on his face --
"Yeah maybe I will take over that damn company. They don't think about kids like me but if I was the boss I would remember"
Damn, what would Chevron be like if run by a low-income kid from Richmond? Why is it that the most low income students who need it the most are being denied information about free government funds for education and are forced to travel to more affluent areas to basically beg for money... too sad.
