Health Career Project Gets $407,681 Grant

A Cal State Northridge professor’s program to encourage minority students to pursue medical and public health careers has received crucial funding from the California Endowment, officials said Thursday.

The $407,681 grant from the Woodland Hills-based endowment will fund Empowering Youth to Serve. It will teach 45 minority high school and college students about volunteer work this summer and offer paid internships, said Barbara Rhodes, the professor who designed the program.

Next year, it will include 90 students, with 30 each from Cal State campuses in Northridge and Dominguez Hills, and 30 high school students from USC’s premed program.

“We are trying to get young people from communities of color into the public health arena,” said Rhodes, who teaches a course on black literature and culture at CSUN and has also run a community service program at the campus.

Driven by a booming stock market, the California Endowment has more than quadrupled since it was created by Blue Cross of California in May 1996, spokesman Mike Powers said. Investment income from the fund, now worth nearly $3.7 billion, helps fund community health care projects throughout the state. More than 500 grants totaling $200 million will be given out by the end of the endowment’s fiscal year March 1, he said.