Eagles Rising

Once they were migrant and seasonal farm workers. Soon they’ll launch careers in health care.

CAMP, the College Assistance Migrant Program, is a federally funded program designed to help young people from migrant and seasonal farm worker backgrounds enroll in — and succeed at — the nation’s colleges and universities. Eastern’s program, led by CAMP alumna Rocio Rangel, is quickly becoming one of the region’s most successful.  

Among its other accomplishments, earlier this year five undergraduates from EWU CAMP were selected to receive the Sea Mar Executive Internship, a prestigious 8-week program with the
Sea Mar Community Health Centers in Seattle. The program will provide them with intensive, hands-on experiences in different areas of health care and management.

The students, CAMP participants Lizeth Tostado in dental hygiene, Lucia Cuevas Ramos in nursing, Maria Sedano in biology, Rebecca Covarrubias in criminal justice, and Zitlaly Cazares in nursing completed their internships this summer.

 “We would like to formally congratulate our CAMP Scholars on this amazing achievement,” says Rangel. 

The Sea Mar Health Centers were founded by Latino community leaders and health activists who worked to develop a comprehensive health center for the Latino community in Seattle, with satellite clinics in rural communities in Western Washington. Sea Mar is today one of Western Washington’s largest providers of community-based health and human services, including primary medical and dental care.

Eastern’s CAMP program has a distinguished history of sending students to the Sea Mar Executive Internship. Marcella Godina ’21, (pictured above in the story banner) is a CAMP alumna who was selected for the internship in 2019. She says it was a great “opportunity to shadow so many providers, care coordinators, medical assistants, counselors, registered dieticians, health educators, clinic managers and echocardiogram specialists.”