California Sen. Adam Schiff Visits New Guadalupe School, Senior Center
Dave Alley
GUADALUPE, Calif. (KEYT) – United States Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) spent part of Tuesday in Guadalupe, where he toured the city’s newest school, as well as its senior center.
“It’s a beautiful little community and it’s my first time here,” said Schiff. “I love coming to new places like this, and it was wonderful to see some of the youngest residents and some of the older residents, but also to see the challenges that you face as a small town that doesn’t have a large commercial base in meeting the needs of constituents.”
The first stop for Schiff was the brand new Guadalupe Early Learning Center, which opened up last month.
The school is the newest campus for the Guadalupe Union School District and has just over 100 students who are enrolled in transitional kindergarten and preschool.
According to Schiff’s office, he was able to secure $1.9 million in federal funding that was used to help offset some of the more than $10 million that was needed to build the school.
“Without that funding, we would not have been able to deliver this particular facility, which would have lessened the quality of their early childhood education, which would have not provided them the support they needed to change the trajectory of their of their lives,” said Emilio Handall, Guadalupe Union School District Superintendent. “Without the support of the federal government in this facility, we wouldn’t have one.”
After his tour of the Early Learning Center, Schiff made his way across the city to the Guadalupe Senior Center, where he spent time speaking with residents, as well as members of the Guadalupe City Council, including Mayor Ariston Julian.
“With all the world issues that are going on in the world and in the nation and the state, to have Adam here visiting Guadalupe, it’s just a just a really pleasant, just a heartwarming feeling for the community,” said Julian. “He interacted with us right now, and the community asked questions just like it was an everyday, casual social event. It was very important for the seniors to see that. We need to start expanding senior centers services and we will do that based on the money that we’re getting here to renovate this hall.”
Schiff’s office indicated the Senior Center federal funding that will be used to make upgrades and enhancements to the aging facility.
“I was very proud to help obtain $275,000 working with Senator (Alex) Padilla and (Congressman) Salud Carbajal to help do some needed repairs and updating of this facility,” said Schiff. “So very proud to do it. Now we have to keep working though to make sure that the funding for food and facilities like this is not interrupted. Some of the Administration’s deep cuts to the SNAP program are going to really hurt senior programs like that here, so we want to keep the food coming as well as make necessary upgrades to the facility itself.”
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