As the coronavirus crisis disrupts ordinary life, students at Santa Barbara City College are being offered help from the Santa Barbara City College Foundation.
"The thing we needed to do quickly was deploy resources," said Executive Director Goeff Green.
He said that the foundation assembled $2 million, then set up a plan for delivering grants. After the application forms were set up, they launched the service.
The moeny is intended to serve as a stopgap measure until other forms of government relief arrive, like unemployment payments.
"We knew that a huge proportion of those newly unemployed people are students," Green said, "because it was the hourly workers at our restaurants, our hospitality industry."
The limit for grants via the program was up to $1000, and ultimately two million dollars will be split among 2300 students.
The Santa Barbara City College Foundation's core source of money is philanthropic giving.
