Did you know that it is possible that there is an investment fund in your name or in the name of your child? For four years, California has offered $175 to all children born in the state as of July 1, 2022 and up to $1,500 for eligible students under age 26.

During a forum organized by the Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communications (OCPSC), they learned about CalKids scholarships, which are intended to help more families access college and career training programs.

This is the California Child Development and Investment Savings Program, better known as CalKids, which offers funds for more than five million children and youth in the state, but thousands of these investments have not yet been claimed.

“CalKids offers scholarships for babies and public school students in California, it is the largest state child development program in the entire country, it is a public investment of more than 2,000 million dollars that offers funds for education,” explained Cecilia Arteaga, spokesperson for CalKids, during the forum.

Claiming a scholarship is easy, fast and takes only a few minutes, according to experts and community leaders, beneficiaries only need to have their State Student Identification Number (SSID) on hand and for minors who are not yet attending school they need the local registration number (LRN) that appears on the birth certificate.

“The beneficiaries do not need a minimum grade point average, nor letters of recommendation, they do not have to do essays, they only require the 10-digit number that appears on the report card, academic history or they can obtain it by asking at the school,” Arteaga indicated.

CalKids funds can cover tuition, books, computer equipment, or any program for academic or professional purposes domestically and internationally if institutions are eligible.

California has surpassed more than 900,000 CalKids program activations in recent years, but a total of $2.3 billion is available to support about 5.6 million students.

The CalKids spokesperson confirmed that California students' legal status is not a requirement to access this program.

They spread the word

Community leaders throughout the state are responsible for informing, training and helping parents to apply for funds and invest in the academic future of children and young people.

Lilia Ocampo, health promoter at the Cha Center in the city of Long Beach, shared that part of her work consists of helping Latinos learn about the resources that are available.

“Our job as promoters is to create community outreach in schools, churches and community events to publicize the benefits of CalKids scholarships and, above all, help parents access these scholarships,” said Ocampo.

He added that in the center's facilities they organize workshops for parents to attend and learn how to verify if their children have a scholarship available and they can even help them with the process.

Ocampo also shared that interested people can make an appointment in person or through a virtual meeting to learn about this program.

In the Central Valley, Isaí Garnica-Palma, assistant director of the Valle Onward organization, visits schools, mostly high schools, to inform students about the CalKids program.

“We have been able to speak with more than 5,000 students and we have been able to activate more than 2,000 accounts, which almost reaches a million dollars that we have been able to obtain for our students,” says Garnica-Palma proudly. “The first event we did we had about 215 students and of those 161 in 37 minutes they were able to activate their account and have their scholarship available and that motivated us to continue working.”

The director says that they rely on different strategies to access schools and inform young people, sometimes they manage to hold assemblies with hundreds of students at the same time and other times they have to take advantage of lunches to get the message across.

“We teach them step by step how to activate their accounts,” he says.

Based on his experience, Garnica-Palma highlights that the most important thing is to have the SSID number on hand, which is different from the student number, which is why he recommends requesting this information directly from the schools, since each district operates differently.

Garnica-Palma also commented that it is essential to explain to the beneficiaries that they can use the funds up to the age of 26, so it is important that they analyze when is the best time to use them.

To check if you are eligible for a CalKids scholarship visit carkids.org.