Oprah Donates $3M To Provide Scholarships For South LA Residents Impacted By COVID-19
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — The Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation announced Friday that it was donating $3 million to provide up to 200 scholarships for South Los Angeles area residents who have lost work due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"As I continue to seek out ways to support underserved communities, I was struck by the unique multi-layered approach to effect real change to the systematic barriers of access to healthy food, quality health care and educational opportunities," Winfrey said.
The money will be donated to the COVID Retraining and Recovery Fund, an educational and career building initiative offering scholarships to South Los Angeles residents who have been furloughed or laid-off due to the pandemic.
The goal of the program is to retrain workers in careers that will likely be in high demand after the pandemic, particularly health care and technology, according to the fund's website.
"Via the CORE Fund, we will be able to truly change the trajectory of hundreds of lives," Sherri Francois, executive director of SoLa I Can, said. "In addition to scholarships, the SoLa I Can team and our partners will be providing mentorship, coaching, tracking and ultimately job placement for the CORE Scholars."
Applications for the scholarship program can be found online.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
