ATLANTA — Help with homework is priceless for students whose first language is not English.
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That’s how LaAmistad began 25 years ago, and the organization has since grown to include many more programs designed to benefit the entire family.
“Just this past year, we’ve served over 3,000 clients,” said Nina Reid, LaAmistad Associate Director.
More than 28,000 people have been served since LaAmistad began in 2001 at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in northwest Atlanta.
LaAmistad began by tutoring children after school, but its reach has expanded.
“We have launched a birth-to-five program, an alumni program, an adult education program, and we have a community center in Sandy Springs,” Reid said.
The organization now has more than a dozen satellite campuses around metro Atlanta, geared toward reaching as many underserved Hispanic youth and their parents as possible.
For Ramiro Juarez, a LaAmistad graduate, the program helped open new opportunities for his family.
“While we were in afterschool, she was learning English and that just made so many doors open up for us,” Juarez said.
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Juarez graduated from LaAmistad and Oglethorpe University. He is now back with the organization, leading a college club and an alumni program.
With a fleet of buses, LaAmistad also works to break down transportation barriers and get kids to its programs.
“We try to come up with resources that connect the community with the help and support that they need,” Reid said.
Those resources include English classes, social-emotional learning, mental health supports and adult education.
LaAmistad is enriching lives and showing families they can do it.
“We want our students to feel empowered, capable, that they have the skills and the knowledge and the understanding to achieve anything that they want to achieve,” Reid said.
Just this week, a new birth-to-5-year-old class went online with LaAmistad.
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