Clinch Fuentes has built a philanthropic legacy that transforms lives, especially within the arts and education.
Fuentes founded Chance to Excel alongside his wife, Cassandra (vice president) to support schools within his community in San Mateo and Foster City. The nonprofit organization supports programs committed to the development of mind, body, and spirit for all children through mentorship and education in the arts, sports, and special needs programs.
“My wife challenged me and said, ‘Our local school could be just as good as any school in the district, all we have to do is donate and volunteer time,’” Fuentes said. “So we took that to action.”
What started as an endeavor to bolster the schools that their children attended, turned into a years-long commitment to furthering the impact the arts, sports, and special needs programs can have in schools, from elementary to higher education.
Chance to Excel’s impact can be traced to various schools across the Bay Area including those within the San Mateo/Foster City School District, Oakland, Castro Valley and UC Santa Cruz. At UCSC, Fuentes supports ArtsBridge, which connects university faculty and scholars with Santa Cruz classroom teachers and diverse student populations.
“There's a lot of areas where kids need a form of expression, not just in biology, English, or history, but in the arts,” Fuentes said. “You never know where their talents are going to lie. With this gift to ArtsBridge I’m hoping to make an impact on even just a few students.”
UCSC ArtsBridge students serve a unified purpose: to spark the creative and academic development of youth, to cultivate a new generation of teaching artists, to provide arts resources to classroom teachers, and to create change within Santa Cruz County schools and neighborhoods to provide full access to arts education for all children in the region. UCSC students provide a needed service to teachers and schools throughout the Santa Cruz region and gain real world experience outside the UCSC classroom setting.
ArtsBridge Faculty Director and Associate Professor of the Arts Sarah Sanford emphasized the tremendous impact the program has on university students.
“Since partnering with the Santa Cruz County Office of Education two years ago at the beginning of my tenure as director, we have seen over a third of our student placements go on to apply and be accepted into credentialed teaching programs, or found employment as an Arts teacher or a teaching assistant,” Sanford said. “The feedback received by our student scholars and their teaching mentors has been overwhelmingly positive. Students express how this opportunity played a significant role in their academic career, helping to solidify their passion and desire to become an arts educator.”
This year, funds provided by Fuentes and Chance to Excel funded fully paid scholarships for two undergraduate students, in addition to covering costs for all materials and supplies used in the arts discipline projects taught by UCSC undergraduate and graduate students.
“These funds have helped sustain our program goals of providing mentorship and hands-on teaching experience for students considering Arts education as a career path,” Sanford added. “Clinch’s generous gift will support continued growth with ArtsBridge over the next several years allowing us to create greater visibility and outreach for the program.”
For recent UCSC graduate Grace Corcoran (Kresge ’24, art), ArtsBridge gave her the tools and outlet she needed to explore a career path. She said that the program impacted her UCSC education in many wonderful ways, and is currently teaching full time.
“Learning to teach art and learning art yourself really go hand in hand,” Corcoran said. “It takes someone who is an active student in the arts, constantly learning and going through the creative process, to know how to teach. Now that I’ve graduated I have been teaching full time for a private studio which I don’t think would have been possible without the skills I developed as both a UCSC student and an Arts Bridge Scholar.”
For Fuentes and Chance to Excel, philanthropy goes beyond a one-time gift. Fuentes focuses on creating sustainable programs that thrive long after the initial monetary support. He is currently in conversation with Sanford about ways ArtsBridge can grow over the next couple of years.
“She’s amazing,” Fuentes said in regards to Sanford. “We’ve been emailing back and forth about what went well with this past year, what do we need to improve upon, and then, how do we expand and sustain the program to last well into the future.”
Fuentes attended the ArtsBridge End of Year Celebration in May and was moved by the impact ArtsBridge had on UCSC students, Santa Cruz County teachers, and students. He is proud to support the program in the coming years.
“It was inspiring to be able to see the looks and the joy on the full time teachers faces that had support they didn’t have before,” Fuentes said. “I got to see a lot of examples of the work that they did in the classes, ranging from fashion design all the way through the classic considerations of art. The varied scope of what they did was super impressive.”
