Puente Club to Return the Favor to Dropout : Education: Organizer of group will benefit from fund-raiser to keep Latinos in school.

Last summer, Maria Martinez was a 4.0 student at Rancho Santiago College where she was involved in student government, worked as an English professor’s assistant and had begun to organize a student support club called Puente, or “Bridge.”

She dropped out this term because of financial problems and pressures at home. Little did she know that the campus club she helped plan would now be helping her get back into school next fall.

“One day I had everything, and the next day it was a nightmare,” said Martinez, 20, who graduated as Matador of the Year, the highest honor a graduating senior could get at Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove. “I never in my life thought this would happen to me--that I would drop out of school--but I guess it does happen to all of us.”

The Puente group, now 5 weeks old, is trying to put some money behind its good intentions to keep young Latinos in college. On Saturday, members of Puente and MEChA, a Latino political and cultural organization, are having a fund-raiser to help Martinez and other financially strapped Latino students on campus. The fund-raiser will feature the popular mariachi group Sol de Mexico, and actor and poet Alicia Montoya.

Organizers hope to raise $16,000, and proceeds from the event will help students such as Benito Juarez, 22, who held three jobs at one point to support his mother, brother and sister while attending Rancho Santiago.

“Sometimes my mom doesn’t earn enough at work and so the money I earn is needed. . . . The reason why I went to college in the first place was because of the necessity to earn more money,” said Juarez, who wants to become a computer programmer.

*

Scholarships will provide the money to keep Latinos enrolled in school, but it is the Puente club on campus that provides the peer support for those Latinos faced with other obstacles.

“Latino students are getting low grades because they have to work to support their families, they can’t study at home because it’s too noisy and they don’t have a car to go to library, or their parents won’t let them go out to study,” said Kenia Cueto, 31, one of Puente’s founders. “Puente will help those who do need a little more guidance than the average person.”

The club has the same name as the better known Puente program, a statewide effort to help Latino students make the jump from community colleges to four-year schools.

The campus Puente club, which is open to all students but focuses on Latinos, has book exchanges among members to reduce the cost of books, provides tutoring, and will offer scholarships from fund- raisers. Saturday’s event is at Santa Ana High School from 2 to 4 p.m. General admission is $10.

Since leaving school, Martinez has been working as a restaurant hostess and trying to save money. She hopes to return as a part-time student at Rancho Santiago College in the fall.

“I really miss school a lot,” she said. “I have my books here at home and I sit here and flip through them. . . . I miss sitting in class taking notes. Everyone thinks I’m leaving school forever . . . but I tell them no, Maria is not ending here, Maria is continuing.”