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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Tag: Texas
Texas Lawyers Provide Free Help to Young Undocumented Immigrants
Many young undocumented immigrants brought to America as kids live in a kind of suspended animation — with everything from college to jobs to medical care to driver’s licenses put on hold by their legal status.
Under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, such young adults can apply for temporary permission to work, go to school, all the while not worrying about being deported. DACA doesn’t provide a pathway to eventual citizenship as the DREAM Act would if it were ever to pass, but the policy still allows these youth to progress in their lives, go to college, and start careers.
Registering for DACA it isn’t easy, however. Applicants must be younger than 31 years of age (as of June 15). Plus, they must provide proof of continuous residency in the United States. Which could be a problem for some immigrants if they started working after high school and took a job that paid in cash because of their lack of a Social Security number — leaving a gap in their records.
That’s why a group of immigration attorneys in Texas will be offering free legal help to DACA-eligible people on June 5 and 6 at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) in San Antonio.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, Texas has 210,000 immigrant residents eligible for DACA, the second highest of any state. (California has the most.) Immigration attorney Alex Garza of RAICES told Dana Choi of the Standard-Times in San Angelo that the nonprofit is trying to find and help as many of those people as it can. “We are actually coming out to the towns and counties so (people who might be eligible for DACA) don’t have to travel all the way out to San Antonio for legal assistance.”
Johana Deleón is one young Texan that RAICES helped apply for DACA; she was approved back in March. Now Deleón is studying for her driving test and was recently accepted into Texas A&M, where she will attend if she can find enough financial aid.
The challenges she faces as she continues her education are considerable, but she’s ready. “You can start at the bottom and work your way up,” she told Choi. “We work hard to get where we are, so I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem for us.”
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Neighborhood Centers Provide New Immigrants an Instant Community
When moving to a new country, finding and gathering everything you need is a daunting, if not almost impossible, task. For immigrants that arrive in Texas, there’s a place that can help them with anything: Neighborhood Centers.
This nonprofit, which was founded in 1907, runs 74 centers in 60 Texas counties, offering everything a newcomer to America needs to get on his or her feet. According to the Associated Press, in 2012, Neighborhood Centers estimates that it helped 400,000 people. In Houston, it offers vital services to a city where 2.5 percent of all naturalized immigrants in America choose to make their homes, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Neighborhood Centers offer everything from after-school programs and fitness classes to job-search assistance, tax preparation and citizenship application help. One perennial favorite is its busy schedule of English classes, which include daytime courses to accommodate the needs of stay-at-home moms.
On the nonprofit’s Baker-Ripley campus in Houston sits the Promise Credit Union, which allows patrons to open bank accounts without Social Security cards or federal work permits — easing the immigrants’ distrust of financial institutions and giving them a safe place to store their money.
The nonprofit also runs a charter school and a welcome center that have been credited with revitalizing some low-income apartment complexes in southwest Houston. They run a thrift store — the Bumblebee Shop — serving as a classroom for patrons who want to find jobs in retail. Workers learn to handle the accounting, inventory, and work schedules. The shop sells items donated by the community, and it’s a good place for people to find affordable clothes for kids, too.
Neighborhood Centers host a knitting group that involves immigrant women in crafting scarves, hats, and other clothing and accessories that they can sell. One of the unifying themes of their programs? To help patrons find ways to make a living even though they don’t have a college degree or perfect English skills.
Often, immigrants start out receiving help from Neighborhood Centers, then return later on as volunteers to help the next wave of newcomers.
Bruce Katz, the vice president of the Brookings Institution, told Dug Begley of the Associated Press, “I think what places need is a vision. There is no lacking capital in the United States. None … What’s needed, and what (Neighborhood Centers) is doing, is putting vision to capital.”
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Young Women in Technology Band Together in Texas to Succeed
Latina women have a hard road sometimes when it comes to pioneering careers in the tech industry.
They comprise only 1 percent of college students enrolled in engineering nationally, according to the Dallas Morning News. They can be outnumbered two to one by men in classes for some disciplines.
Students at the Singley Academy in Irving, Texas, take care of their own by offering a much-needed peer support group, Girls for Technology, for young women trying to make their way through the lucrative but male-dominated career path.
The club is a model for how banding together could help girls break into the ranks of science and tech careers — and demonstrate the different, and valuable, viewpoints young women bring to the table.
Singley Academy’s Assistant Principal Kacy Barton, who helped start Girls of Technology, told Avi Selk of the Dallas Morning News, “Females think differently. The guys get wrapped up in the technical side. ‘How are we going to make this work?’ Girls tend to respond to things they see changing the world around them.”
Lesly Hernandez, a senior, wants to work for NASA someday. Hernandez spent part of her childhood in Mexico while her parents worked in the United States. She now lives with her single mother, a food court manager, and a 6-year-old brother she looks after while her mom works. She’s also her household’s repairwoman.
Another club member, Rubi Garcia, showed early signs of science prowess when she smashed her Barbie radio — and then repaired it.
Supporting each other has given the young women confidence as they prepare for college. Women are essential, Barton says, because they think differently.
A man might say, “‘Let’s …do something else.’ And one of the girls reaches over and says, ‘If we just do these two steps, we’ll get this accomplished.'”
Leave it to a young woman to figure out how to engineer something simply.
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Cheer On These Inspiring Wounded Navy SEALs as They Reach for the Sky
Leave it to former Navy SEALs to decide that the best way to get their lives back on track following a series of health crises is to scale Africa’s highest peak: Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Twenty-six year old Will Cannon, of Houston, Texas, is one such climber. Cannon was a sergeant in the Army serving in Afghanistan when he lost his right leg (and his best friend) in an explosion. Unfortunately, his bad luck didn’t end there. After leaving the Army, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and underwent radiation.
During the cancer treatments, Cannon’s spirits sank. But now that he’s in remission, he’s hoping to rejuvenate himself and others by joining a team of wounded veterans who plan to scale Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Cannon will be on hand to help two Navy SEALs who lost both of their legs in service — Bo Reichenbach and Dan Cnossen — complete the difficult ascent. (Cnossen, a Topeka, Kansas native, recently competed at the Paralympics in Sochi, Russia in Nordic skiing.)
Cannon told Roberta MacGinnis of the Houston Chronicle that it’s especially difficult for a Navy SEAL to cope with physical disability. “We are, in our minds, 10 feet tall and bullet proof. We are men. So whenever one of us gets hurt — loses his legs for instance — and we come home, you know, and what do we do? What are we supposed to do? At one point I was leading men into battle, and now I can’t even walk.”
The mountain climbing expedition is part of the Phoenix Patriot Foundation’s mission to bring together small groups of veterans to foster the military bond they miss when their service is over. Jared Ogden, a former Navy SEAL, founded the nonprofit and asked Cannon to join the expedition. The foundation has raised over $15,000 toward its goal of $50,000 to fund the expedition.
Reichenbach and Cnossen will use robotic prosthetics during the week-long climb, which is scheduled for this summer. Reichenbach told MacGinnis, “I’m proving to myself that I’m still capable of doing things that most people can’t do, even though I’m missing both legs from above my knees.”
Which just goes to show that even after injury, Navy SEALS are tougher than most of us will ever be.
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Inside ‘Tank Town’ Could Lie a Solution to the Country’s Worst Drought in Decades
The town of Dripping Springs, Texas, is not living up to its name. In the last five years Dripping Springs, along with most of Texas, has been experiencing its worst drought in decades. But inside Dripping Springs lies an oasis of water — 250,000 gallons of it to be exact.
The area is called Tank Town. Twenty years ago Richard Heinichen grew sick of the water he was getting from his well. “I took my first shower, and I almost threw up because of the sulfur smell,” he says. He built a system in his backyard to collect, store and pump rainwater through his house.
Since that fateful shower, Heinichen has installed about 1,300 tanks, including 16 on his own property. He collects so much water, in fact, that he now bottles and sells his own Cloud Juice. People around the country — many of whom have to contend with the effects of drought — are turning to Tank Town to find solutions to their water woes.
The State That’s Actually Hiring Teachers and Paying Them More
Following the 2008 recession, landing a stable career in the teaching profession didn’t look as promising as it once did, due to cuts in educational spending and layoffs. But now, with the country’s economy rebounding, hiring is on the rise. And it appears that search for teaching talent is no more evident than in the state of Texas.
As the Associated Press reports, after restoring $3.9 billion of the $5.4 billion it had cut from education funding in 2011, the Lone Star State is looking to stock up on teaching staff. And here’s the best part: Some districts (particularly in Houston) are offering starting salaries for entry-level teachers at $50,000 or above.
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According to the AP, Texas is focusing on attracting teachers who are certified to teach bilingual classes, special education, and high school science and math. In fact, at the Aldine Independent School District in Harris County where the majority of students are Hispanic, the starting salary for a bilingual teacher is $54,500. Statewide, the minimum teaching salary is $27,320 while the average salary is about $49,300 — that includes salaries for educators who have been teaching for years or have advanced degrees.
It’s a sad fact that many of our country’s teachers — the men and women whom we trust to provide our children with an education — make less than a personal trainer does. Currently, the average teacher in the United States makes about $49,000 a year, with many making much less. The New York Times reported in 2011 that to make ends meet, 62 percent of teachers have to have jobs outside of the classroom.
If the country wants to get serious about educating the next generation, it can start by retaining and attracting the best teachers. And if it means giving them more money for their hard work, it’s a price this country should be willing to pay.
How a 20,000-Year-Old Tree Is Finding New Life in Texas
It was a sudden firestorm that left two people dead, some 1,700 homes burned to the ground and 33,000 acres of the Lost Pines area just east of Austin, Texas, destroyed. The Labor Day weekend wildfire of 2011 had followed a long stretch of 100-plus-degree temperatures that parched Central Texas. As the long weekend approached, Tropical Storm Lee was churning westward over the Gulf of Mexico promising saving rains. But the storm brought no moisture, only strong winds that whipped power lines and set off sparks, igniting a blaze that ripped through the drought-stricken forests.
Over three blistering days, three separate forest fires merged to engulf the area. It would take firefighters a month to quell the flames completely. It would take residents years to recover — some are still waiting to move into rebuilt homes. But while physical and psychological scars remain, now thanks to volunteers and a massive reforestation project, there is hope that the Lost Pines will be renewed.
Called the Lost Pines because of their isolation, the loblolly pines that blanket this area grow about 100 miles apart from their East Texas cousins. They have adapted over the years to the drier conditions found in Central Texas — they’re generally a little shorter than the loblolly pines found in the Southeastern United States, their needles a little waxier and their trunks not as straight. For Austin-area residents, they are a beacon. On the drive back from Houston or from a woodsy weekend in a Bastrop State Park cabin, the familiar site of the pines lining the hilly roadside just to the east of Austin lets you know you’re almost home.
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Many people who lost their homes in the 2011 fire lived or worked in Austin. Nearly 700 of the victims were low-income residents who were left homeless. “It’s our neighbors,” says Nina Hawkins, communications director for TreeFolks, an Austin nonprofit that has long been committed to enhancing urban forests with annual free-sapling giveaways.
The simple fact of seeing neighbors in need prompted TreeFolks to play a key role in reforesting the area. After the fire, the Texas A&M Forest Service pledged a five-year plan to plant trees, including 6,600 acres of state parkland that had been consumed by the blaze. TreeFolks then stepped in, armed with donations and grants from the Alcoa Foundation and the American Forests Global ReLeaf Partnership for Trees, to help further replant privately owned land. Since many landowners could barely afford to rebuild their homes, it was unlikely that they could pay to plant new trees.
The TreeFolks project, which aims to plant 1.1 million trees in five years, has just completed its second year. In Central Texas, tree-planting season runs from October to March, Hawkins points out, and this year TreeFolks embedded nearly 600,000 seedlings on private land in the devastated area. Over the winter, hundreds of volunteers of all ages, working with TreeFolks and the park reforestation program, got down on their hands and knees to press the tiny seedlings into the charred soil.
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The seedlings are being grown at several nurseries in the timber-growing areas of Georgia, Louisiana and Oklahoma, and at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. Without these contributions, it is unlikely that the area could be revived, according to Dan Pacatte, TreeFolks’ reforestation coordinator. The few trees that survived the fire would not have provided enough seed stock to replant the area. “They talk about a crown fire, or a ground fire,” says Pacatte, “but this was both. It was like a blowtorch. The fire was so hot, it burned up the seed source.” The ubiquitous pine cones that dot the forest floor were wiped out.
“We are shooting for a 50 percent survival rate,” Pacatte says, noting that drought still has a stranglehold on parts of Texas and that spring rains are needed. “Last year we had about a 40 percent survival, but we are happy with that.”
It will take 20 to 30 years for the trees to reach maturity, but this won’t be the first time the Lost Pines have been resuscitated. In the 1930s, when the Civilian Conservation Corps came in to establish Bastrop State Park, now a popular retreat for Austinites, the forest had already been suffering, likely thinned by lumber harvesting. A decade later, during World War II, more trees were cut down to build the U.S. Army training base, Camp Swift, nearby. It would take several decades for the forest to recover from the impact of that harvesting.
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Then in the 1950s, a bit of circuitous serendipity: Texas lumber company executives persuaded Allan Shivers, who was then governor, to fund a nursery and tree-breeding program to support the state’s timber industry. The Lost Pines trees, valued for their drought tolerance, were eyed as a potential boost to the industry and so seeds were collected, and an East Texas nursery began to grow the seedlings. The nursery survived until 2008, but by then demand for the Lost Pines trees had diminished — lumber companies preferred the taller, straight-trunked loblolly pines.
When the nursery closed, a cache of some 1,000 pounds of Lost Pines seeds was left. Somehow, those seeds found their way into an industrial freezer 200 miles away in Lufkin, Texas. They were tentatively slated by the Forest Service to be discarded in a landfill by September 2011 — but then came the Labor Day fire. These are the precious seeds now being used to reforest the scorched lands surrounding Austin.
Local legend says the Lost Pines were originally planted by Native Americans who moved into the area from the Piney Woods of East Texas, bringing with them the seeds of loblolly pines. Scientists say the pines date back nearly 20,000 years to the Pleistocene era. Today, whether inspired by legend, scientific wonder or by the sheer spirit of endurance of the trees themselves, hundreds of volunteers are committed to restoring the Lost Pines to a familiar and favorite place.
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When This Sergeant Saw Vets Lined Up For Jobs, He Decided to Create Some for Them
When Sgt. Alec Haggerty of Killeen, Texas saw a line of veterans standing outside a military staffing agency, waiting their turn to apply for a job, he knew he had to do something to help. So he started EcoGrunt Home Improvements, a green construction and renovation business that currently employs five active-duty and retired military servicemen. It seemed a natural venture for Haggerty, who comes from a family long involved in both the military and construction.
EcoGrunt specializes in both commercial and residential spaces, offering a range of services from small handyman repairs to larger landscaping projects such as deck and rock wall additions. Starting a company was just the beginning for Haggerty, who recently launched a GoFundMe campaign with the goal of raising money for wounded veterans who need to remodel their homes because of injuries. Haggerty is pledging to match every dollar donated with donated services through his construction company. “I know I can’t help everyone, but maybe if I do this it will start a chain reaction,” Haggerty told Valerie L. Valdez of Killeen Daily News.
Paperwork Stood Between Immigrants and Their Dream, So This Group Stepped In
In 2012, President Obama issued a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals memo that instructed the departments responsible for enforcing immigration laws to refrain from deporting immigrants who were brought to this country as children. The benefits from this policy don’t happen automatically, however. Immigrants must get legal help to prove their continuous residency in the United States, pay a $465 filing fee, and fulfill other requirements to qualify, and many people in this situation can’t afford to pay a lawyer. That’s where the Center for Legal and Social Justice at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio steps in.
About a year ago the center began offering free legal help to people who qualify for deferred action, and so far they’ve helped 200 low-income teens and young adults wade through the necessary paperwork. The center has succeeded with every single case it’s taken on during this mission. Once achieved, the deferral must be renewed every two years, and allows the immigrant to receive work authorization.
For 19-year-old Luis Garcia who arrived in the U.S. at age 2, help from St. Mary’s University “gave me the boost I needed to continue on forward,” he told Jennifer R. Lloyd of My San Antonio. Garcia is now a freshman at San Antonio College.
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