Five students from EWU CAMP, the College Assistance Migrant Program, were among six Eastern undergraduates who received a Sea Mar Executive Internship, a prestigious 8-week program with the Sea Mar Community Health Centers in Seattle that will give them hands-on experience 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 — along with the TRIO Ronald E. McNair Scholar Program’s Betty Granman in biology — will begin their internships in late June.
“We would like to formally congratulate our CAMP Scholars on this amazing achievement,” says CAMP director Rocio Rangel. “A special thank you to Jennifer Nuñez from the Running Start Program for her advocacy and for reaching out to the students for help with the internship application process.”
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.
EWU CAMP is a federally funded program designed to support students from migrant and seasonal farm worker backgrounds during their first year of college. The program has a long history of sending students to the Sea Mar Executive Internship. Marcella Godina, a CAMP participant who was selected for the internship in 2019, recalls it was a great opportunity to learn from a variety of health care professionals. Godina especially benefited, she says, from “the opportunity to shadow so many providers, care coordinators, medical assistance, counselors, registered dieticians, health educators, clinic managers, and echocardiogram specialists.”