Curtis Asplund, physics and astronomy assistant professor at San Jose State, turned to an alternative teaching method by having students help the Santa Clara County community.
Asplund’s students volunteered at Sacred Heart, a San Jose-based non-profit volunteer organization that offers programs such as food banks to utility assistance.
The students helped with outreach for Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a federally funded program aimed at assisting low-income households, according to a ca.gov website.
“In physics, it's not as common to talk about policy questions or how the subject really relates to you know society,” Asplund said. “My idea of creating the course in the first place was to change that.”He also said the students' role was to reach out to the families who were granted the money to survey them about their thoughts and opinions on the program.
However, there are more people who are in need of this kind of support.
Asplund said, while the energy assistance programs help those in need, there are still thousands of people who are left unaware that they too are eligible for the program’s assistance.
“They're doing a great job, but they are trying to expand,” Asplund said. “But they don't actually get it because either they don't hear about it or they don't sign up or they don't have the proper language support.”
Physics graduate student Matthew Hahn was one of Asplund’s students. He said he enjoyed the class and feels as though he made a difference in the community.
“A lot of people I called were really grateful that they got the service and had someone to talk to about it,” Hahn said.
Sacred Heart director of energy Lorena Sánchez-Castañeda, said they work with many different universities and high schools within the area.
“We’re always really excited to work with the educational institutions because we know the nature of Sacred Heart and our work,” Sánchez-Castañeda said. “This is our opportunity to engage young people in an organization that is close by.”
She said the program helps up to 10,000 families in Santa Clara County but still could be helping more families who are qualified for the program.
“Technically we only serve about 13% of the folks who are actually eligible for this program since we have eligibility income mandates that the families have to meet,” Sánchez-Castañeda said. “We’re constantly trying to push that out so that we can inform the community and create that pathway and that access to the service.”
Daniel Maldonado, energy outreach specialist at Sacred Heart, said he helps volunteers with the training and spreading the word about the program and that training the students to make the calls took about an hour.
“We gave them a list of phone numbers and they sat there and they made the calls, the calls were to my team upstairs,” Maldonado said.
Maldonado said the students were nervous at first but encouraged them to have an open mindset when talking on the phone.
“The group of students we had were nervous, and I get it, you are going to be talking to strangers,” Maldonado said. “You’re going to hear some stories that are happy and some that are sad.”
Maldonado said with the year starting and new applicants applying, he hopes to see more student volunteers to help Sacred Heart’s goal of reaching those in need.
