This year’s Community Impact Award recipient, Clover Park Technical College (CPTC), demonstrates what’s possible when student experiences are placed at the center of institutional efforts. By redesigning its approach and working closely with community, CPTC’s Student Aid and Scholarship Department champions a culturally responsive model for making financial aid outreach accessible, adaptable, and sustainable through local partnership.
Financial aid remains one of the most powerful levers for expanding postsecondary opportunity. Yet far too often, students are left to navigate complex and unfamiliar systems without adequate support. CPTC recognized that meaningful outreach requires more than information. It demands connection, context, and care.
“We started by taking a hard look at who was successfully navigating the financial aid application process, both at our college and in the Pierce County region, and who was being left out. We next looked at our own processes, acknowledging that in order to move the needle, we needed to rethink our service model rather than relying on students and families to come to us for guidance.”
—Celva Boon, Director, Student Aid & Scholarships, Clover Park Technical College
CPTC’s team focused on bringing resources into student-centered spaces—before school, after school, during lunch—and partnering with trusted community organizations and adults. Together, they worked to reduce the burden on families navigating complex application processes on their own.
They also revised their communication strategy to better serve underserved student populations. Financial aid materials were rewritten with clarity and cultural relevance, going beyond translation to reflect community context, local norms, and common family dynamics. Key strategies include:
- Partnering with local high school districts offering financial aid advising through student cultural clubs and peer-led spaces.
Offering advising and outreach in familiar, trusted environments, fostering belonging and approachability.
Providing support outside traditional office hours and locations, from school cafeterias before the bell to cultural events hosted by community partners.
CPTC understands that effective financial aid outreach must do more than inform. It must connect. Cultural relevance isn’t a final polish, it’s a starting point. A thoughtful, community-grounded approach can transform a student’s first step into an invitation: to ask questions, feel ownership, and stay engaged.
As community-based practitioners have long known, culturally responsive messaging means designing systems around the realities of those they’re meant to serve. CPTC’s model reflects this, offering a proactive, relationship-based approach that meets students and families where they are – with family, context, and care.
Institutional Accountability in Practice
CPTC’s financial aid strategy didn’t hinge on a new tool, product, or platform. It was grounded in institutional accountability and community responsiveness. Their approach offers a replicable model for how colleges can realign their practices to better serve their students – not through sweeping reform, but through intentional, everyday choices.
In awarding the 2025 Community Impact Award to Clover Park Technical College, we recognize not just their outcomes, but their commitment to designing with students at the center. CPTC also received a $5,000 honorarium to support the continued growth of their outreach strategy.
CPTC’s work is a reminder that real progress happens when institutions listen, adapt, and build trust through meaningful connection. By staying close to the barriers students face and reshaping their own practices in response, CPTC is leading by example: one relationship, one conversation, one student at a time.
