Veronica Rivera never got past elementary school growing up. But if she had, she’d have been at the top of her class.

“She’s a really good student. She is always studying,” says Puente Program Director Rita Mancera, of Rivera.

Rivera is 37 and has four children, ranging from preschool to high school. In December 2011 she graduated from elementary school and in October, she graduated from middle school thanks to Puente – slightly ahead of her second-oldest son, who is in 8^th grade.

Now, thanks to a scholarship from the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME) Becas, Rivera is preparing for high school – that is, she’s going to study for her GED, and will be tutored by volunteers at Puente.

“I like to study. The GED is hard work but I think I can do it,” says Rivera, who lives in La Honda.

Rivera is the first Puente student to complete her Plaza Comunitaria curriculum, a program Puente offers in concert with the National Institute for Adult Education in Mexico.

The literacy program, offered by a growing number of schools and organizations in the U.S., gives Mexican expatriates an opportunity to earn a “primaria” (elementary) and/or “secondaria” (middle school) degree.

It took Rivera less than a year and a half to complete the whole program, according to Mancera.

And why did she do it?

“I have one daughter in high school, in 11th grade, and one son in 8^th grade,” she explains. “When they went to middle school they said, ‘Mom, can you help me do my homework?’ When they were in 3^rd and 4^th grade, I could help them. But when they went to 6^th grade it was very difficult. I said. ‘I think I need to study again. I need to help my kids.”

Rivera never made it out of elementary school as a young girl, because she chose to stay home to care for her ailing mother and other siblings in Mexico.

But she scored very high on a diagnostic test administered to place Plaza Comunitaria students on the right academic track. Students don’t just learn to read – they learn other subjects by reading textbooks on health, social studies and Mexican history.

“That’s what I like about the system – it validates all the things you have already learned in life,” says Mancera, Puente’s Program Director.

Rivera (married name Carmona) is now known as the “Pride of Plaza Comunitaria.” She was even interviewed on 1010 AM, a Spanish-language Bay Area radio station, for a show called Hecho en California (“Made in California”).

Kassi Talbot, Puente’s Learning Center Associate, was the person who persuaded Rivera to enroll in classes in spite of her many commitments at home. Rivera studied with a Puente tutor two hours a week but did everything else on her own.

No one doubts Rivera will earn her GED in record time. The question is, what’s next?

“I think I’m going to college,” she says.

Funding for this project is provided in part by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME) Becas. For more information about Plaza Comunitaria or other Puente literacy programs or to make a donation, contact Kassi Talbot at ktalbot@mypuente.org or (650) 879-1691 x 138.

‘Ruth Shavel, volunteer’ is a permanent nametag for Shavel. So much so that when she started collecting donated items for Puente schoolchildren, she didn’t even need to be told how to sort everything.

You might even say she’s addicted to giving.

Shavel, a Redwood City resident, has been volunteering since she was a teenager, putting trays on donuts to serve to injured World War II veterans with the Red Cross in Palo Alto.

“You had to be 16 to volunteer but I wasn’t – I was 14. I had to stay in the kitchen because I wasn’t supposed to be there,” says Shavel.

Later on, Shavel’s local school district benefited from her efforts as a volunteer both inside her children’s classrooms and as volunteer coordinator for the entire school district. Then she spent 15 years volunteering with Samaritan House of San Mateo, feeding homeless people.

So when a friend introduced Shavel to Puente last year, it was only natural that Shavel immediately decided to launch an all-out donation campaign to help collect school supplies for local students. She approached her local gym, a Curves franchise, about gathering the supplies. And a few months later, she showed up in Pescadero with an entire trunkful of paper, pencils, water bottles, calculators, crayons, folders, reusable lunch bags and backpacks.

“I took the car and we filled the whole trunk. You couldn’t have gotten a toothpick in there. It was wonderful,” declares Shavel.

She hasn’t stopped there. Shavel now has another drive going for donated adult essentials – towels, soap bars, toothbrushes, jackets and the like, which Puente always keeps in stock to deliver to clients.

Puente needs your help this holiday season! Please see our wish list for children’s Christmas stocking-stuffers as well as gift bags for farm and nursery workers. New this year, Puente is raising $7,000 via a special campaign drive on Rally.org to give South Coast parents a gift card that will allow them to shop for their children.

“I think Puente is so far ahead of the other agencies I started with,” says Shavel. “They have a lot going on with a minimum amount of overhead. They have support up and down the coast. That’s the way to make a better life for these people who are here to help us.”

To learn more about donating to (and volunteering for) Puente, contact Abby Mohaupt at amohaupt@mypuente.org  or  click here.