As the 2025-2026 school year comes to a close, program directors, community partners and students reflect on this year’s season with College Corps at the University of the Pacific.
The College Corps program is housed within the California Service Corps and gives selected students an opportunity to ease tuition costs while helping the community. Students can earn up to $10,000 if they complete 450 service hours during the school year. The deadline for first-year and transfer students is Sunday.
Read more about the origins of the program and UC Berkeley’s students’ experiences in the program.
Community partners: St. Mary’s Community Services, Black Urban Farmer’s Association, and The Edible Schoolyard Project
St. Mary’s is a homeless shelter that offers three meals a day, every day of the year. It provides a variety of resources, including a dental clinic for anyone regardless insurance, as well as showers, housing and social services.
Navpreet Kaur actively engages with clients and helps wash dishes, sweep, mop and serve food. She isn’t from Stockton, but grew up in San Joaquin County helping hand out food to those in need.
“You can see those who have drug addictions or alcohol abuse,” Kaur said. “You can see how much they’re struggling. Resources like St Mary’s help them a lot. There are some people here I met, they’ve been sober for many years. They say it’s because of how St Mary’s treats them, and they have resources here.”
Site Supervisor Karen Gonzales says she keeps coming back because of connections with clients and sees herself in the college fellows. She admires seeing fellows build confidence and how they get to know clients.
“It’s an amazing experience to go from doubting yourself, what you’re doing here, because how can you save somebody else, some stranger you don’t even know,” Gonzales said. “But I do know them. I’ve made connections with them.”
At the Black Urban Farmer’s Association, the organization works to supply locally grown crops to the community. Co Founder Reatha Hardy-Jordan said they are very lucky to have fellow Josh Turnbull because of his farming background and work ethic he brings to the farm. She commended him for his creation of standard operation procedures for the chickens and goats. When Josh leaves the farm, his impact and work will leave a lasting impression Hardy-Jordan said.
“I’ve really enjoyed my time at BUFA,” Turnbull said. “It forces me to get out into the community.”
The Edible Schoolyard Project provides hands on activities for children and offers educational programs.
“I learned a lot of things about agriculture, and I learned to work on my personal skills like communication as well as talking and connecting with the community,” Therese Bui said. “Especially because I’m not from this side of Stockton, I’m from the north, so it was nice, just talking with other people from Stockton.”
How UOP joined the program
The 2025-2026 academic year was the UOP’s fifth with the program with 105 fellows, having particapated in a trial run in 2021 called Civic Action Fellows.
“At its heart, college core, is a path for an affordable higher education through community service,” Pacific College Corps Assistant Program Manager Casey Buisson said.
Next year UOP will have 103 slots up for offer in the competive application process. They were selected to receive funding through 2029 and California Volunteers is adding seven new campuses across the state. There will be approxiamtely 4000 fellows statewide.
UOP’s community partners focus areas are K through 12 education, food insecurity, climate action and community health. While students can’t volunteer with the same community partner twice, they can still in the same field of interest if they return for another year.
Buisson says the help isn’t just financial for fellows. Students are considering changing their majors to education and social work because they want to utilize the skills they’ve built and the values they’ve utilized through College Corps in a future career of service.
“Even though this is my first year here, multiple first year students that I’ve talked to — we go over their goals for the semester and then also beyond graduation — and the amount of fellows that come to me and say, ‘I did not know I loved working with kids this much, and now I’m rethinking my entire career’, and I do have to talk them down a little bit and be like, ‘It’s okay if you don’t have everything figured out.’ It is really, really sweet,” Buisson said.
When applying at UOP, students are asked specifically why they are interested in serving the city of Stockton.
“The amount of history that Stockton has, as far as community building and civil rights and every other struggle, but also persistence that has been shown in Stockton, I think really manifests itself through College Corps,” Buisson said. “Every community host partner exists because other people want to pour into this community. So I do want to highlight the fact that when looking for fellows, we’re not only looking for people to serve a community, we’re looking for them to serve the Stockton community.
Director of California Service Corps Josh Friday said UOP was selected for their ethic of service built into the culture and promotion of civic engagement with their students.
“We’re always looking for more young people who want to be involved and get help paying for school by serving their community,” Fryday said. “At a time of loneliness and division in our society, and also a mental health crisis with young people, we’ve just seen how this program has brought people together, has provided purpose and meaning for young people, and has lifted entire communities up. We’re proud of the impact it’s had in Stockton, and we know we’re just getting started.”