College of the Canyons officials hosted their sixth annual nonprofit fair Wednesday.

Rows of booths for nonprofit organizations lined the college’s cafeteria in an attempt to reach out to student volunteers.

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The schoolwide event was put on by the Service Learning Program, which helps students to expand their learning by giving them the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities and volunteer programs.

“We help (students) find relevant placements that tie what they’re learning in the classroom to real-life experience,” Kim Arredondo, who works for the Service Learning Program.

Service Learning Program staff members work with the college’s faculty to ensure the programs directly correlate with students’ academic plans, Arredondo said.

The booths were represented by staff from many different organizations, including Adult Day Health Care, Boys & Girls Club of SCV, Samuel Dixon Family Health Center and more.

“Samuel Dixon Family Health Center is a non-profit community clinic,” said Amber Martinez, patient benefits coordinator. “We’re really trying to gear toward people between the ages of 19 and 64 to make sure that they’re covered…and hope to get them insured.”

Representatives from Sylmar Biotech Health Academy High School were also at the fair in search of volunteers.

“We’re looking for volunteer tutors who would like to take time out of their busy schedules to come and tutor our children,” said Leah Trujillo, student and parent academic success coordinator.

“It would either take place during school or after school,” Trujillo said. “A lot of our students are struggling right now with math and science, and even spanish. So just finding any tutors helps because we are in need of them.”

The nonprofit fair has been a successful way for students and organizations to benefit each other over the past six years.

“We have our nonprofit organizations come to campus to share their mission and also to gather up volunteers, but (the fair) also serves for our Service Learning students,” Arredondo said.

“A lot of our nonprofits here visiting us today are partnered with us, so our students can sign up with them and get their projects done for the agencies that are here today.”

Many COC students did just that, as they gathered information from the different booths and found ways to complete their Service Learning volunteer opportunities.

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