Alumni Spotlight

Rebeca began attending PRY's family literacy program in 1992, when her three children were nine months, 18 months, and 3 years old.  Rebeca had emigrated from Mexico three years earlier.

"I remember a woman yelling at me in a store when I had been in the country one week, because the cashier yelled “next!” and I didn’t understand.  I realized I had to learn English!  And when I was pregnant, I would have to go to the doctor and find my way around the hospital.  I would write things down and ask my father-in-law later what they meant.  My husband came to English class at night and someone told him about Even Start and he told me to try it.  I started coming every Tuesday night and I liked the program and so I started coming during the day on Wednesdays with my kids.  I liked the program because we each worked separately and then did an activity together.  It was so nice to have someone else paying attention to my kids!  I thought it was so great that while I was learning, my kids were playing and learning too.

"The program taught us so much, because they taught us as our children's first teacher, and then the children learned in class, and so when they got to school they had such a great foundation.

"I was in the program for three years, my younger boys went to preschool here.  Then PRY offered me a job...first just two hours a day working with the children.  It was a great experience, because I could work and I could learn.  The teacher would teach me the words before the lesson with the kids and the parents.  then PRY helped me get a job with the Department of Education...they opened the door for me and I went right in!...now I have a dream that when my children are done going to university I will too.

"The most important thing for me and my kids was learning to read books together.  They showed me at Even Start how important it was and how to do it, and I read with them every day.  Now Raquel is at St. John’s University, Jonathan got a scholarship to Brandeis University.  Alberto is participating in the Model United Nations, a conference where they speak about different countries and different problems around the world.  Last year Jonathan went and felt so important, and this year Alberto is going too."