Grantee Spotlight Archive

Rural California Students Reach Higher with Catch The Dream Program

Students in rural areas do not enroll in college or obtain bachelor’s degrees with the same frequency as their urban and suburban counterparts. The Catch The Dream Program, a College Access Foundation of California grantee, is working to change that by creating a college-going culture in its community and increasing the number of Coachella Valley High School graduates going on to four-year colleges and universities.

A collaborative effort between the Coachella Valley Unified School District, Coachella Valley High School and the Coachella Valley Education Foundation, Catch The Dream is a voluntary college awareness, preparation and support program available to sophomores, juniors and seniors. Located in a historically rural but rapidly growing community, Coachella Valley High School is predominantly Hispanic, and a majority of students are the first in their families to attend college.

Participating students attend monthly meetings to obtain the information, resources and support necessary to pursue postsecondary education. For seniors, this means everything from guidance through financial aid paperwork to assistance with payment of housing deposits before financial aid is available for use.

“We want our students to find the college that is the right fit, the right feel, the right size for them,” says Lynette Wohlmuth, who leads Catch The Dream. To that end, the program’s support for its students includes funding individual and group college visits. When one student was pursuing an athletic scholarship to Illinois, the program paid for his flight. Another student who was accepted to school in New York was able to take her mother and grandmother with her to visit the campus, giving them a sense of security in seeing where she would live and study for the next four years. “Having the families’ support is critical to these students’ success,” Wohlmuth says. “They play a huge role in the college-going culture we are striving to create within our school district.”

Seven years ago, 16% of Coachella Valley High School graduates went on to four-year colleges. That number is steadily climbing, to 20% in 2006 and 23% in 2007. To the program staff and other stakeholders, this progress is both encouraging and necessary for continued support and interest from the community. “We’re working to establish a relationship of trust with our students and families so that younger brothers and sisters of former Catch The Dream students will be excited to be a part of the program when they get here,” adds Maria Alvarez, secretary for the program.

Lynette Wohlmuth attributes part of the program’s success to the support of College Access Foundation of California. “We had been successful getting kids to college, but we continued to face a financial aid gap, as even low-income students are not always awarded full-tuition scholarships,” she says. “College Access Foundation’s grant helped us close that gap for 58 students last year, which established our credibility within our community and with other funders.”

The program’s recently renewed grant will allow for additional student support, administrative costs to ensure sustainability and valuable professional development opportunities for program staff. “College Access Foundation recognizes the fact that a small group of committed people can really do something,” Wohlmuth says. “It empowers us – who know these students best – to apply the funds in the most impactful way possible. I don’t see a lot of foundations out there willing to support small community-based organizations like ours in that way.”

For more information on College Access Foundation grants visit our Grants page. To read more College Access Foundation grantee spotlights, visit our Spotlight Archive.

To learn more about Catch The Dream, contact Lynette Wohlmuth at lwohlmuth@coachella.k12.ca.us.