Verizon Donates Sum to City College

Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) received a sizable donation on Friday from Verizon Communications that school officials hope will benefit students majoring in math, engineering, and science. Holly Cole, Verizon’s director of Government & External Affairs for Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, presented Barbara Ben-Horin with a check for $22,500 that will go specifically to SBCC’s MESA program. MESA (Math, Engineering and Science Achievement) aims to help financially needy students statewide if the students are pursuing one of these three majors. It also actively recruits students who are traditionally underrepresented in these fields of study, such as women, Hispanic people, and the economically disadvantaged. SBCC spends more than $80,000 annually to keep its MESA program afloat, and Ben-Horin said in a prepared statement that the school badly needed this money. “This is a wonderful gift for an important program,” Ben-Horin said. “Without corporate support such as Verizon’s, our innovative programs could not be sustained.”