Readers Care: Group helps beat barriers to getting a degree

Good works, not just words.

Heather Rastovac is a perfectionist. The University of Washington honor student studies late, pushing herself to succeed. The pressure sometimes gets to her.

		Andy Rogers / P-I
	Heather Rastovac, 29, is completing a bachelor's degree with the help of Seattle Education Access.

Recently her mother found Rastovac, 29, at her desk, crying over open books. "Why are you doing this to yourself? You're not a desk person," she recalls her mother asking her.

"It's for a degree," Rastovac explained. With it she would have options she didn't have when she was living on the streets for seven years.

Rastovac ran away from a troubled home at 14, and spent seven years homeless in Seattle and San Francisco. At 17, she was violently attacked by a stranger.

"That made me realize, 'Wow, my life could've been taken right then and there. And then what?'," Rastovac recalled. "But I'm alive, and if I'm alive, then I really want to live my life to its absolute potential."

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Rastovac stopped abusing substances, took better care of her health, became a vegetarian and started transitioning off the streets. Back in her hometown of Seattle, she found an apartment, earned her GED and enrolled at South Seattle Community College.

Rastovac was doing well in school, but felt the pressure.

"The system is so difficult to navigate on your own when you don't have the knowledge, the support," she said.

That is when Rastovac met Polly Trout, executive director of Seattle Education Access, which helps low-income and marginalized people earn college degrees. SEA offers a community of support for its clients.

"The (college) system is set up to assume you have family support," Trout said. Some of SEA's clients are immigrants, others were at one time homeless and many are single parents. All have a desire to get an education, but many barriers stand in the way.

SEA doesn't feel like a handout and doesn't belittle you, Rastovac said. "Because it is a non-profit, because it is so grassroots, it really feels more like a community than a handout."

She is finishing a bachelor's degree in Near Eastern language and civilization, with minors in anthropology and dance, and is applying to master's and doctorate programs in performance studies.

"I feel it's my responsibility in this life, almost on a spiritual level, that I am obliged to pursue what I am passionate about," Rastovac explained. "A lot of low-income, marginalized people only get support for trade school or quick degrees that will put you into the work force quickly."

However, SEA fits the system to the person, rather than the person to the system.

Anttimo Bennett found his options for education limited to technical fields, until a counselor at Shoreline Community College told him about SEA. A former foster care child and now a single parent, Bennett jumped at the chance.

"I contacted Polly, and man, it was like magic," Bennett, 26, said. SEA helped cover his tuition, books and on occasion, even his rent. Rather than worry about the rent that month, he could focus on school.

"That's something I've never seen in any other program," Bennett said. The UW senior was recently named to SEA's board of directors.

For Bennett, his college degree isn't for him.

"I have an opportunity to provide a better life for my daughter," said Bennett.

The six charities that will benefit from this year's drive are: The Forgotten Children's Fund, New Futures, Northwest's Child, Renton Area Youth & Family Services, Rise n' Shine and Seattle Education Access. For more information, go to readerscarefund.org.

READERS CARE

For more than a quarter-century, Seattle P-I readers have donated generously to the newspaper's annual Readers Care Fund, generating more than $5.6 million for local charities. Today we feature another of the six charities that will benefit from this year's drive. Read more about the charity drive at readerscarefund.org.