Hailing from Haiti, Ermance Cyriaque has been in the United States for two decades, and her hard work as a shelf stocker at Walmart paid off as she recently moved into a house of her own in New London, Conn.
Hope Inc. (Housing Opportunities for People), a nonprofit that provides affordable housing for working-class people in Connecticut’s southern Middlesex County, purchased and renovated the home, then sold it to Cyriaque at a below-market price. The Hope Inc. program is geared toward low-income people that are well-equipped to stay in their homes, and Cyriaque was chosen because of her excellent credit.
New London’s neighborhood stabilization program contributed $34,000 so that HOPE could purchase the home. The organization has renovated 13 homes on the street where Cyriaque will live, and the houses will remain permanently affordable — even if their original owners sell them.
Cyriaque has been living with her daughter Annesylly and her nine-month-old grandson Zorienn Canuto in a three-bedroom apartment, struggling to make ends meet in a community where prices were outgrowing her retail wages. To qualify for the program, she had to earn no more than half the median annual income in the area for a family of two: $33,850. Annesylly, who also qualifies for the program, will rent the apartment attached to her mother’s house.
When the family saw their new home for the first time, the Ninigret Quilters Guild presented Cyriaque with a hand-pieced quilt to make it cozy. (The Rhode Island quilters frequently donate their handiwork to needy families in the area.) According to Lee Howard of The Day, Kate Lamoureux, one of the quilters, tells Zorienn, “I hope it becomes your favorite blankie.”
Meanwhile, Ermance Cyriaque had a gift of her own to give. She gave Marilyn Graham, the Executive Director of HOPE, a painting with the words Do What You Love. “You went over and beyond to take care of us and help us out,” Annesylly says of Graham.
Of Howard, Graham says, “Theirs is a nice American dream story.”
And it comes wrapped in a warm, new quilt.
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Tag: Helping Immigrants
For More Than 100 Years, This House Has Been Welcoming New Americans
Neighborhood House in west St. Paul, Minn. has come a long way since Russian immigrants in the area built a simple wooden structure in 1897. First opened to give newcomers the support and information they needed to make their way in this country, Neighborhood House now has a bigger and fancier home and the immigrants it serves come from different countries than they did 117 years ago. But the nonprofit’s mission remains the same.
Neighborhood House supports immigrants of every kind — from struggling newcomers who rely on its food pantry, family crisis center and refugee resettlement services, to people striving to become educated and advance their careers. It also offers a free preschool for the children of immigrants and an after-school program for teens that teaches them about health, education and careers and encourages them to engage in community service. But that’s not all. The center also provides health programs, gang-prevention activities, English language classes and GED prep courses.
Over the years, people from about 40 countries have benefitted from Neighborhood House’s services.
Nancy Brady, president of Neighborhood House, tells Angela Davis of CBS Minnesota, “Our mission at Neighborhood House is to help people gain the knowledge, the skills and the confidence that they need to overcome whatever the challenges are that they’re facing in their life — and move forward.”
The nonprofit’s three-year-old college access program is already changing lives — providing scholarships to adults of all ages who want to attend college. “Year one, nine people went to college,” Brady says. “Last year, 61 of our participants went to college. That’s how we measure success.”
Neighborhood House is funded through donations from its community, and for more than 100 years, residents in St. Paul have considered it a worthy investment. “We want to help people dream,” Brady says, “and then work to make their dreams come true, and to help all people see a positive future.”
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How Digging in the Dirt Improves the Health of Immigrants in America
As anyone who’s traveled to a foreign country can attest, food can vary greatly from land to land.
So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that when some immigrants move to America, their health declines because they don’t have access to the fresh produce that enriched their diets in their native country.
In rural western Colorado, a unique program is solving this problem by helping immigrants learn English while they grow healthy food for their families — and it’s giving the farmer who hosts them some new notions about what crops to grow, too.
In the town of Delta, immigrants from countries including Mexico and Myanmar who sign up for ESL classes learn about a program at the Thistle Whistle Farm, located near Hotchkiss, Colo., about 45 minutes away. The immigrants help out at the farm and in doing so, get tips on how to cultivate and grow their own food. Plus, they can practice their English writing skills while taking notes on gardening techniques.
Their ESL and farming teacher, Chrys Bailey, tells Laura Palmisano of KVNF, “A lot of what has brought them to the program is that they are noticing that their families and themselves are beginning to suffer from health issues that they had not suffered from before and they are making the connection that some of their food choices are not serving them.”
Some students bring their children to Thistle Whistle to help out, filling idle summer hours with a productive and fun activity. “My kids enjoy coming to the farm and they like it because they learn about plants and how to grow some vegetables,” Yadira Rivera tells Palmisano.
The participants then take their new found gardening skills back home, planting their own vegetables, even if the only space they have is a couple of pots.
The program, which has run for three years through a grant from the Colorado Health Foundation, needs funding to continue.
Meanwhile, Mark Waltermire, the owner of Thistle Whistle Farm, has benefitted from the program too. “They’ve suggested or requested I grow a lot of vegetables and herbs I haven’t heard or tried before and I’ve been introduced to all sorts of fun, new varieties and fun new vegetables that I would otherwise not have been exposed to. So it has changed my diet too. I eat all sorts of things that I previously never knew about.”
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Setting Politics Aside, Americans Are Stepping Up to Help Migrant Kids
A new Gallup Poll finds that the issue of immigration has become the number one national concern of Americans. And while there’s no legislative solution in sight to cope with the massive influx of refugee children fleeing Central American gang violence and arriving in the states that border Mexico, individuals across the country are putting partisan issues aside in the face of this humanitarian crisis, coming up with ways to help.
In San Francisco, 17-year-old high school student Julia Tognotti has been working tirelessly to collect clothing for the detained children ever since she saw a documentary on the crisis in her Spanish class last May. After school recessed for summer vacation, she traveled to Nogales, Texas, and volunteered in a shelter for the migrant kids.
“I talked to a boy there on the first day named Brian. He was 17 and I’m 17 and he was from Honduras and it took him two months to get to Mexico and he took seven trains. And I was so surprised to hear this because it really made me think, ‘could I do this?'” she told Sergio Quintana of ABC 7 News San Francisco.
Tognotti has collected two loads of clothes to send to Nogales and is planning to continue her work, accepting donations in Brisbane, California. She also hopes to organize a trip to the border for more teenagers to learn about the issue. Julia’s father David Tognotti told Quintana that the family doesn’t want to get “tangled up in the politics of the issue,” they just want to help the kids.
“We have a 17-year-old that’s trying to do what she believes is right to help people and it would be great if we could help support her.”
Meanwhile, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF), a Washington, D.C.-based national organization promoting Latino leadership, organized a trip for concerned people to volunteer at a refugee shelter run by Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas. Actress America Ferrara, best known as the title character in “Ugly Betty,” joined the mission, reading books to the kids. HHF has also donated clothes, toys, books, and tablet computers.
In New York, La Casa Azul Bookstore is coordinating a book drive to supply migrant kids who arrive at shelters in the New York City area with free reading material. They’re looking for new and gently-used books in Spanish for kids and are offering a 10 percent discount to anyone who buys such books at their store. La Casa Azul will collect the books through August 10 and personally deliver them to children and teenagers in need.
As the actions of these caring Americans demonstrate, we don’t have to wait for government action before we reach out to help another human being.
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What’s Helping More Refugees Than Ever Build Businesses in Colorado?
In many states across the country, the economy is picking up after the long recession, making aspiring entrepreneurs eager to launch their small businesses. The only problem? Requirements for loans from traditional banks are still strict, leaving potential business owners, including many immigrants who may not have the credentials banks are looking for, with no capital to start their ventures.
In Colorado, the solution to this crunch has come through several microloan nonprofits that are able to lend smaller amounts than commercial banks do, and serve a wider variety of people, including refugees who want to open shops, home childcare businesses and restaurants.
Denver-based Somali refugee Abdullahi Shongolo was one beneficiary of these programs. Three years ago, a microloan enabled him to buy an international grocery store, leaving him with a rosy view of his adopted country. “If you try, this is America—you can,” Shongolo told Thad Moore of the Denver Post. “This is the country that went to the moon, man.”
According to Moore, microlending is booming in Colorado. Community Enterprise Development Services, a lender specializing in helping immigrants and refugees, increased the number of borrowers in the most recent fiscal year by 150 percent. None of the 51 loans the nonprofit has made since it opened in 2010 has defaulted.
“Refugees do not only bring a few bags of clothes and a few belongings,” Suleyman Abbgero, who used a microloan to open a coffee kiosk in an Aurora mall, told Moore. “They also bring a lot of ideas. If they are given the opportunity, they can do much more.”
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Meet the Volunteers Bringing Relief to a Humanitarian Crisis in the Southwest
An unprecedented humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the southwest: A surge in gang violence in Central America, especially in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, has prompted the parents of thousands of children to send their kids to the U.S. border, often alone or with a “coyote,” or paid smuggler.
According to the Dallas Morning News, officials say that 52,000 such children and teenagers have already arrived this year, with an estimate of 120,000 to arrive in the next fiscal year. While politicians argue about the cause of the surge and what should be done, caring people in Texas are not waiting for federal action to step up to help the distressed mothers and kids.
Sister Norma Pimentel saw immigrant mothers and children drooping at the bus station in McAllen, Texas as they waited to travel to meet relatives in other parts of the U.S. Because there are more people than local immigration officials can handle, they are permitting the migrants to travel to meet relatives and then appear before an immigration court at that location. “They are dehydrated, they are totally drained, they just fall and they need attention,” Pimentel told Karla Barguiarena of ABC 13.
Sister Pimentel began to coordinate a massive relief effort. For the past two months, she’s led a group of volunteers in assisting people at the bus station. “They don’t know who to trust,” Sister Pimentel told the Catholic News Service. “They fear someone will take advantage of them.” The volunteers reassure them that they are not going to exploit or harm them, and help address their immediate needs.
She also contacted a local priest who agreed to allow her to use the parish center at Sacred Heart Church, near the bus depot, as headquarters. Sister Pimentel set up cots for the homeless immigrants, and began to manage and distribute the donations of clothes and food that are flooding in.
“The assistance centers are an immediate and temporary response to the need,” she told the Catholic News Service. “A long-term solution is needed.”
According to Dianne Solís of Dallas Morning News, volunteers are launching similar efforts in other parts of Texas. A Catholic Charities children’s shelter in Fort Worth is doubling its capacity and aiming to open more shelters soon, and the Dallas branch of Catholic Charities is working to coordinate relief services, as well as holding immigration law seminars for lawyers who want to volunteer to help the migrant kids.
If you want to help Sister Pimentel’s efforts, you can donate through Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. Catholic Charities of Dallas has set up a crisis info page and is accepting donations too, as is Southwest Key, another nonprofit that is running shelters for the kids.
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From Field Hands to Farmers: This Program Helps Latino Immigrants Become Land Owners
When asked what they want to be when they grow up, many little boys say that they want to be farmers. But when those small men become full-grown ones, a career in agriculture is often far from their minds.
That’s precisely the problem facing Minnesota. Those who own the state’s 69,000 farms are aging — averaging 56.6 years old — and many of their children aren’t interested in continuing the family business.
At the same time, more Latino immigrants than ever before are flocking to the state, and many of them would love to own their own farms, but they lack the necessary capital to purchase land.
It’s precisely these two demographic trends that inspired Ramon Leon, the CEO of the Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC) in Minneapolis, to find a way to help low-wage Latino workers become farmers.
Leon has experience in transforming the lives of low-wage immigrants. According to Tom Meersman of the Star Tribune, Leon’s organization has already helped many people previously employed as dishwashers and drivers become business owners. And three years ago, the LEDC established a training course for prospective farmers, provided them with loans, and set up Latino farming cooperatives, such as the Agua Gorda co-op (named after the Mexican town that many meatpacking workers in Long Prairie, Minnesota come from).
“There are a lot of Latino workers in agriculture that aspire to be farm owners if they had a chance,” John Flory of the LEDC told Meersman. “The question is what model can we use to bring them from being low-wage agricultural workers to having an opportunity to be a farm owner.”
The workers in the co-op keep their day jobs while farming rented fields on evenings and weekends. The first year, each member contributed $250 and all together, the group took out a $5,400 loan. They sold $7,000 worth of produce (including peppers, tomatoes, melons, and cucumbers), and eventually were able to expand their acreage and their sales to $40,000 last year. Their main focus? Developing connections in the community so that they can sell all of the produce they grow.
Many of the immigrants find that as their work roots them to the Minnesota soil, long-time residents are becoming more accepting of them. “When you go to communities the people start seeing you there working so hard, and they give you some respect,” Jaime Villalaz, business development specialist for the LEDC told Meersman. “They start thinking of us as good people.”
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This Camouflaged Credit Union Saves Immigrants From Predatory Loans
If you see a neon sign on a storefront reading “cambio de cheques” (check cashing), you probably think it’s just like any other check-cashing and payday loan purveyor out there.
But while the Community Trust Prospera in East San Jose, California, is situated in a strip mall next to a beauty shop (like many other check-cashing joints), it’s anything but your typical check-to-cash operation.
The Community Trust Prospera is actually a credit union, offering its patrons (many of which are Latino) much more than just quick access to greenbacks. It provides patrons the opportunity to build their credit.
Many immigrants conduct their lives on a cash-only basis, steering clear of intimidating banks. Last year, the National Council of La Raza estimated that 20 percent of Latinos in America don’t use banks, a higher rate of bank avoidance than what is found among any other group.
In response, Self-Help Federal Credit Union has opened six branches including Community Trust Prospera in San Jose and Los Angeles to try to reach some of these underserved communities. These branches now boast 11,000 members, who have socked away a whopping $1.3 million in savings.
Community Trust Prospera offers many of the same services that check-cashing and payday loan establishments do, but without the oft-typical predatory interest rates and fees. Alexia Fernández Campbell of National Journal spoke to Darwin Morán, who uses the financial institution to wire money to his family in El Salvador and to cash checks from his landscaping work. Initially, he resisted opening a bank account, but the staff there finally convinced him to.
“I started to become friends with them and slowly I started to change my mind,” Morán told Fernández Campbell. “Fixing my credit and paying my debts was so important to me,” he said.
Improved credit and a bank account gives low-income people a greater ability to rent an apartment. And taking advantage of programs such as Community Trust Prospera’s Fresh Start Loan (which is a type of loan that requires a deposit), eliminates the need to visit payday lenders — yet another important step towards establishing a more secure financial future.
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A Life of Service: This Couple Wants Every Latino to Achieve the American Dream
Seeing young people not get their fair shake day after day can have a lasting impact on someone.
That was certainly the case with Richard Farias, who began his career as an educational liaison in the Houston, Texas juvenile justice system and now most recently, founded the Houston-based nonprofit American Latino Center for Research, Education & Justice.
“I became much more empathetic,” Richard told Lindsay Peyton of the Houston Chronicle. “I saw my job as trying to help kids, instead of trying to catch them and lock them up. I have a lot more insights on how to help them with the day-to-day.”
Moving on from the justice system, he started one of the first charter schools in Texas in an effort to address the problems he saw. Later on, Richard became the executive director of an alternative high school that gave dropouts a second chance.
Houston Mayor Annise Parker awarded Richard a lifetime achievement award in 2011, but as the launch of his new nonprofit demonstrates, he’s not done helping people yet.
Now with the help of his wife Rita, Richard is seeking to transform Houston neighborhood by neighborhood to become a city that boosts its low-income Latino youth to success. While the Latino population in northwest Houston is growing, Richard told Peyton, “there’s minimal support services for Latinos and their children here.”
Using their knowledge and experience, the couple has already started helping families at a mobile home park in the area. Describing it, Rita said, “You wouldn’t even know it’s there, and the living conditions are terrible.” As they work to transform the neighborhood, they keep the goal of their nonprofit in mind: To enrich the lives of low-income communities through education, arts, justice, and economic opportunity.
While the Fariases are zeroing in on one neighborhood, their nonprofit is also focusing on the big picture — by organizing the Latino Education Summit at Rice University in August. “It will hopefully serve as a catalyst to affect changes at the state level,” Richard told Peyton.
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Meet the Celebrity Chefs Cooking Up a Unique Way to Improve Literacy
As the old maxim goes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
Now, a new literacy program in Philadelphia hopes this proves true not just for men, but for women and kids, too. And instead of romantic love, they’re looking to foster a love of reading.
In the City of Brotherly Love, more than half a million adults are illiterate or low-literate — that’s more than half of the adult population of the city. So the Free Library of Philadelphia is partnering with local Iron Chef alums Jose Garces and Marc Vetri to launch a non-traditional, cooking-based literacy program. The Culinary Literacy Center opened June 2, offering cooking and literacy classes to adults, kids, teenagers, and ESL students of all ages.
“The beauty of culinary literacy is that it’s basic literacy skills — math and science — and you get to make something. That tactile part of when you’re learning something is so important,” Siobhan Reardon, the president of the Free Library of Philadelphia told Francis Hilario of the Philadelphia Business Journal. “For us, the role of the library is about the grand experiment of bringing people to literacy, and that’s what we’re doing here.”
Garces, an Ecuadorian-American chef, restaurant owner, and of course, Iron Chef winner, has been helping immigrants for years through his Garces Foundation. He sees this venture as aligning with his foundation’s mission of helping kids and teaching people to read by following and writing recipes.
The Parkway Central Library in Philadelphia is in the middle of a major renovation that included adding the Culinary Literacy Center, with its three ovens, walk-in refrigerator and 16 burners. Currently, the library is working with Garces and Ventri to get a school curriculum developed for the fall.
With any luck, after their cooking classes, the new students will be inspired to take home a few books from the library.
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