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Mentorship Programs Fuel College Dream for Oakland Teen and Others Like Her

Cheeks, 17, who was born and raised in Oakland, wants to eliminate corruption from within. Her first step will be majoring in sociology and participating in the Black Scholars Program, which will give her a community to interact with daily.

Published

4 years ago

September 22, 2021

Isabelle Price

Imahni Cheeks

Oakland Technical High School graduate Imahni Cheeks moved into a residence hall at the University of San Francisco last month as an underrepresented college student who wants to one day be a lawyer.

Her mother is from Mexico and her father is Black. Afro-Latino people are not well-represented in higher education, according to Berenice Vega, who worked with Cheeks through Oakland Promise, an organization that helps Oakland students get from the cradle to a career.

That changed just a little when Cheeks received notice that she was accepted into USF, full expenses paid, including any needs such as BART fare, books, and a computer.

Cheeks described herself as a social justice advocate.

“I’ve seen the issues,” Cheeks said of police brutality against Black men and crowded housing in the Hispanic community. “This needs to change,” she said. “I want to be part of the change.”

Cheeks was accepted into University of California at Berkeley, too, but chose USF because she sensed she will find community there.

She said the decision was hard and she looked for a sign that never came. On the day she chose to accept USF’s offer, she said she probably would have changed her mind 20 times.

She is now settled on USF, with the understanding that it isn’t a final decision; she could apply again or transfer.

“I don’t know tomorrow,” Cheeks said, a motto she uses frequently.

What swayed her decision was also the feeling she got from talking with a sociology professor at USF who was excited about working with Cheeks and said she would be there for her along the way.

Cheeks has 10 siblings and described herself as family-oriented. Five siblings live in one U.S. household, one lives in another U.S. household and four live in Mexico, she said.

Her parents are divorced. Besides Oakland, she has lived in Antioch and Vallejo.

Daniel Guzman, former program manager for Latino Student Achievement in the Oakland Unified School District, helped Cheeks with scholarship applications.

She was a pleasure to work with, said Guzman, who described her as a self-starter who takes initiative.

As far as other personality traits, she’s not afraid to share her own ideas even if they’re not aligned with yours, Guzman said.

He described Cheeks’ personality as “infectious.”

To Vega, college access coordinator with Oakland Promise, Cheeks is mature and very outspoken.

“She’s really like a model student,” Vega said.

The two met at a youth leadership meeting that Guzman held.

Cheeks knew, according to Vega, that college was going to be a way out of a low-income upbringing.

“I definitely wanted to make sure she didn’t fall through the cracks,” Vega said of Cheeks.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

2 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

4 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

5 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke