Stories

Opportunity Knocks
This spring, as classes winded down
and students continued on to kindergarten,
the Volunteers of America had 10
students enroll in the Gifted and
Talented kindergarten program at
a their local elementary school. These
were 10 students who entered Head
Start speaking no English and with very
few academic skills. Three of these
children scored above 97% on the
test used to determine eligibility for
the Gifted and Talented program.
Thank you to all the teachers and family service workers at Volunteers of America
Head Start! An example of the way
families can use Head Start services to become self sufficient lies in a group of 6 parents who participated in every
opportunity that was offered for education. First, they signed up for English as a
Second Language classes offered at the Head Start site at no cost to them. In
February, they participated in a
Spanish-language GED preparation class
again, offered at no charge to them at the
Head Start site. In April, they took their
tests and received the General Equivalency
Diploma, which enabled them to get better

jobs, make more money to support their
families, and gave them the confidence
to sign up for the next offering, which was
a computer skills class. While they were
in the class, which was offered by a
community partner of the Head Start
program, they received information about
scholarships that were being made
available to enable them to attend nursing
school. Because of the great need for
bilingual nurses, they were given the
opportunity to begin classes at the
Emily Griffith Opportunity School. This
then made them eligible for nursing
classes at the Community College of
Denver. To the best of our knowledge,
three out of the original six are still
attending classes in the evening and are working towards their LPN credential.
Pretty amazing accomplishments
for recent immigrants from Mexico who
came with the clothes on their backs and
not much more!

Strangers Among Us
There are numerous passages in both
the Old Testament and New Testament
instructing us in the way we are to treat
strangers. In Leviticus 19:34 we are
instructed “The stranger living with you
must be treated as one of your native-born.
Love him as yourself for you were strangers
in Egypt.” In Matthew 25:35 we hear
“For I was hungry and you gave me
something to eat, I was thirsty and you
gave me something to drink, I was a
stranger and you invited me in.” The
Colorado Branch of Volunteers of
America has been taking care of
“strangers” for 110 years. Our mission
was never more critical than on
September 3, 2005, when Frontier
Airlines delivered the very first plane
load of Hurricane Katrina evacuees to Colorado and put them into the care of Volunteers of America. Volunteers of America Colorado Branch staff rallied
to the challenge and 27 employees
volunteered to provide case management
on a one on one basis for our first guests.
Housing, food, clothing, healthcare,
identification, FEMA, and transportation
were just a few of the issues

that were dealt with. Some evacuees
returned to the Gulf Coast area. But, as
the extent of the damage in Louisiana
became apparent, it was obvious that
most of these guests would be here for
quite a while. Over a year later Volunteers
of America still actively serving people
whose lives were shattered by Hurricane
Katrina – people who came to Colorado
as strangers among us. Volunteers of
America is now working in collaboration
with Lutheran Social Services, Aurora
Mental Health and Catholic Charities to
continue to offer assistance and support
to over 500 families in the Denver metro
area who moved here after the hurricane.
The parable of the Good Samaritan echoes
the Biblical instruction to love our neighbor.
In the story only one of three travelers who
passed by the man beaten along the
roadside stopped to offer him help. When
asked “Which of these three do you think
was a neighbor to the man who fell into
the hands of the robbers?” the reply is “the
one who had mercy on him.”
“Go and do likewise.”