Community Link boasts 15 years of assistance to Amarillo area, AC by Tanya Wethington The Ranger Reporter

Community Link celebrated 15 years of service to the Amarillo community on Nov. 10.

"We wanted to celebrate the fact the we are still here and successful, but at the same time we wanted to say thank you to the community and thank you to Amarillo College," said Maury Bird, a community outreach specialist.

Community Link, formerly known as the STARS program, provides disadvantaged people with language skills or English as a second language, employment and GED training, and it is a steppingstone for the transition to AC.

"The program was founded in 1987 and was created because at the time, leaders in the Hispanic community saw a need to provide Hispanics with a place to learn about language and life skills," Bird said.

"The main goal of the program was to help single moms and homemakers get jobs or obtain a college education."

Donna Moore, the person responsible for a grant that provided the funds for the program, and Linda Barksdale, director of advising and counseling at the time, spoke at the celebration about the program, how it started and how it has evolved.
Roger Rosales and Teresa Jimenez were guest speakers.

Rosales, who is legally blind, graduated from AC in 1998. The Community Link program helped him with his disability.

Jimenez plans to graduate from AC this month with a biology degree.

She was involved with Community Link because English is her second language.

"I talked about how I got started with community link and how hard the transition from high school to college was until I found Community Link," she said.

"I also talked about how we need to spread the word of Community Link, because a lot of people don't know about it."

Jimenez said the program aided her in several ways.

She received help filling out the necessary paper in order to receive scholarships, which helped pay for her tuition and books.

"The future hopes are to close the gaps by registering more Hispanics into Amarillo College, and also all colleges should enroll more than 500,000 students by the year 2015," Bird said.

"We want to expand our area of service.

"We need to grow, and our finances need to grow."