The Re-Entry Resource Program hosted their seventh annual Community Resource Fair on the Library sidewalk Thursday, April 16.

The fair is an opportunity for people re-entering their educational career to be exposed to resources that would ease their transition.

It aimed to bring helpful services and resources that are often times unused due to lack of awareness.

Many of the students walking around Cerritos could make use of the great services and organizations found throughout the Cerritos/Norwalk area.

The fair brought resource agencies such as Mothers Nutritional Center, Alta Med, and the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health are a few that had booths out at the event.

Shannon Estrada, Re-Entry resource specialist, began the annual resource fair in 2007.

She said, “I used our resource directory going through seeing what I thought students would be likely to ask about […] stuff that I thought was meaningful […]and it kind of grew from there.”

Some of the programs are also searching for volunteers and interns, which is yet another way that the resource fair can help students.

She added, “I actually had one of my student workers who got insurance through one of the agencies here, so she was able to go to the doctor. To me it was like ‘wow, okay it made an impact on somebody.’ Proving the worth of the resource fair.”

One of the organizations that held a booth was the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health Service area VII.

Mental health service coordinator Maria Ceballos, performs outreach duties in the southeast region of cities which Cerritos and Norwalk fall into. She said, “We know that teenagers suffer from a lot of stress and re-entry students suffer a lot of stress coming back to school, just life is very stressful and sometimes it gets to be too much for a person.”

She states that everybody needs good mental health and the goal of her booth is to spread exactly that.

The Department of Mental Health has also held workshops and presentations on the Cerritos College campus. They can be found at 17707 Studebaker Road.

Student turn out was not strong at the start of the event but later in the day, more students walking by stopped at booths that caught their eye.

The free goodies were what caught the eye of Ricardo Deluna, undecided major. He said, “It is kind of disappointing because you would think people would want to take advantage[…] but they just walk by like nothing.”