How one campus center is spreading holiday cheer
By Miranda Morgan
Every year, the holiday season rolls around. First, Halloween. Then, Thanksgiving. And lastly, Christmas. With these holidays come costumes, pumpkins, feasts, gifts and drained bank accounts.
For some, this time is no sweat. Put it on the tab.
For others, this time can be a nightmare. Credit card debt racks up faster than one can blink. Along with it? Stress, and occasionally panic. Before one knows it, the new year is here along with the same old dread of trying to play catch up.
College students in particular are notoriously broke, so the dread of the season can sometimes be two-fold.
Chaffey College’s Rancho Cucamonga campus houses Panther Care, managed by Norma Rojero. It is a tiny-but-mighty room stocked with food and hygiene products for students free of charge. Year round, their floor-to-ceiling shelves line the warmly-lit room stocked with canned goods, boxed items and other necessities.
Now, they are ramping up their services to suit the season as grocery prices continue to soar.
Despite only being in the center for four months – but at Chaffey for a whopping 26 years – Rojero is determined to ease that strain.
An alumni herself, Rojero knows what it means to be a Panther.
After completing a Business Administration degree from Chaffey, she began working for the college. She counseled, oriented and assessed Panthers as the counseling coordinator for 16 years. She aided faculty in their own scheduling. She worked directly with Superintendent Dr. Henry Shannon from 2022 until Aug. 2025, when she joined Panther Care as an interim manager.
In her lengthy time here at Chaffey, changes have been plentiful. From architectural changes to the move towards digital, one thing has stayed clear to Rojero:
“Whenever we do something, we do it with the students in mind. We do it to be able to assist and help the students finish their education here at Chaffey, and onto their careers.”
Panther Care, started in 2019 by Albert Rodriguez, the Director of Student Life, Equity and Engagement.
The center had humble beginnings. It offered small goods such as granola bars and water bottles as a means to help students out when they were on campus. Now, they offer diapers, clothing, hygiene and menstrual products, food and beverages.
The center itself is state grant-funded. With leftover funding and donations this past semester, the resources have expanded. As the holiday season is upon us, Rojero has made the most of the resources – and of her four-month run in the center – turning holiday strain into holiday ease.
In the beginning of November, the center received 1,500 canned goods from Los Osos high school over a period of three weeks.
“The trunk of my car was packed,” Rojero stated. “I have a small SUV, and each trip I made, the back of it was completely full.”
The center received 600 cans from the Cucamonga Valley Water District. Donations were also received from a Rancho Cucamonga High School freshman and a sixth grader from Etiwanda Intermediate School who teamed up to do a food drive of their own. All donations were welcomed with open arms and made available to all Panthers.
On Chaffey’s own home base, the center partnered up with Coach Kendyl Rizea to rekindle some collaborative food and toy drives. In exchange for admission to holiday-time women’s and men’s basketball games, attendees were encouraged to bring in either a canned good or a board game. These were also distributed to Panthers and their families, just in time for Christmas.
On Dec. 9, the center also held a Winter Wonderland Luncheon. Students were able to bring themselves and their children to enjoy a free lunch, participate in activities and take home a holiday care bag.
“They were so excited to be here,” Rojero recalled, reflecting on how happy the families were to be able to enjoy some of the holiday activities, such as cookie decorating. “They were having a good time.”
The timing of the luncheon coincided with one of the center's weekly mobile pantry drive-thrus, where students can receive bags of groceries or hygiene items from the comfort of their car.
Something new that Rojero brought to the center this year were the $100 grocery gift cards offered right before Thanksgiving. While her term is only expected to run through June 30, she hopes the gift cards will be something that can be offered annually.
“The holidays are really very stressful – not just because it is close to the end of the semester, but with the economy and everything being so expensive. It’s kind of a difficult time sometimes for our students,” Rojero said. “I saw that the students were really so grateful to have received those gift cards. If we have the funding, we will try to be able to provide these every year.”
That proof of gratitude typically comes in the form of quick divulgence from students, often when they are the lone ones in the center.
“Typically it’ll happen when it's just between, you know, me and the student. They will open up about how grateful they are for the services that we provide, and they leave thanking us, all the way to the door,” Rojero said. “You could see really that it has made a difference.”
While Rojero’s time at the center is – as of now – on a limited clock, she is not letting that limit her sights for the future. She has her heart set on making the Panther experience as smooth as possible, for any and all.
So, for the Panthers who cannot just “put it on the tab,” head down to Panther Care, and find a sense of ease this holiday season.