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Students participate in an I’m Going to College program event at the Rose Bowl before UCLA&

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Volunteers teach the 8-clap to participants in the I’m Going to College program.

With their perfected 8-claps, UCLA football jerseys, and blue and gold accessories, the thousands of participants in the I’m Going to College event on Saturday could almost pass for current UCLA students.

But their shirts, with names like E. Neal Roberts Elementary School and West Valley Eagles gave them away as aspiring Bruins instead of the ones currently enrolled.

The UCLA Athletic Department’s I’m Going to College program, the largest collegiate community outreach project in the nation, brings elementary, middle and high school students from Southern California to UCLA sporting events, including football, gymnastics and women’s basketball games. It also offers campus tours to the students throughout the year.

On Nov. 11, the program hosted students at the Rose Bowl, where they received information about financial aid and admissions, played games, and attended the football team’s game against Oregon State.

The program was created in the fall of 1996 as a way to reach out to as many kids as possible, said Debra Schneider, coordinator and one of the founders of the program.

Aida Morrow, a marketing assistant for UCLA Intercollegiate Athletics, said the goal of the program is to inform students about the opportunity to go to college.

“It’s our hope we expose them to college life and to the idea that they can in fact one day go to college,” she said.

She said more than 30,000 tickets were requested for participants to go to Saturday’s game.

Schneider, who is also an assistant vice principal at San Fernando High School, said one of the highlights of the event was seeing some students from her school as well as her colleagues from other schools bring their students out.

Registration for the event, including the game tickets, is free for all groups and schools, but is reserved on a first-come, first-served basis. Transportation is not funded through the program, but free parking passes were available to the groups.

Volunteers helped navigate the students to the activities fair, operated the games, and took them inside the Rose Bowl once it was time for kickoff.

Celina Chavez-Lemón, a second-year biology student, volunteered for the event with members from the new student group L.A.T.I.N.A.S. – Leaders Actively Taking Initiative through Networking, Academics, and Social Justice.

She said it was good to see kids getting the opportunity to experience a bit of college life.

“It’s something I would have liked to do at that age,” she said.

As raindrops started to fall on Saturday, many of the kids ran for shelter under a tent set up in the tailgating area outside of the Rose Bowl. There, the activities fair was set up with a mini basketball hoop, ring toss, face painting and tables with representatives from UCLA’s financial aid, admissions and housing offices.

Chavez-Lemón was in charge of the Match-a-Block game, where kids tried to toss balls into open square blocks to win UCLA stickers and pencils.

Some of the kids at the event were members of the West Valley Eagles Pop Warner football team, coached by former UCLA football defensive end Kyle Morgan. Morgan graduated in 2006.

He said all it took was a phone call for him to agree to bring the kids to the event.

Morgan, who said he still attends every home football game, said he has fun coaching because for many of the 10- and 11-year-olds he coaches, it is the first time they’re really getting to play football.

Though the temporary tattoos imprinted on the kids’ faces at the face-painting station will fade soon, Morrow hopes messages learned from the I’m Going to College program do not.

“A lot of younger siblings look up to their older siblings (in college),” he said. “Expose them to college on a firsthand basis.”