Some youth succeed due to their early circumstances. Others succeed in spite of them.

Odalys Nabor is 14. She lives in a rented trailer in a rural patch of Pescadero with her mother, stepfather, twin brother and 3-year-old sister; her brother often sleeps on a couch in the living room.

For Odalys, who struggles in school, getting homework done is an act of willpower. Home life can be so noisy and crowded that she sits under a tree to complete her assignments – it’s her quiet place. Her parents don’t speak English, so they can’t lend a hand when she needs it. Odalys also minds her younger sister for her parents, her mom works long hours at a flower nursery in Half Moon Bay.

When she started at Pescadero High School this September, Odalys knew she was in trouble. “It was hard at the beginning. I’m not really that good in English and I was placed in an intensive English class. Also I didn’t understand the work,” she says. Odalys is an intensely shy young woman when you meet her; petite and soft-spoken with a thick ponytail and serious eyes.

So Odalys went outside of her comfort zone this fall. She came to Puente and asked for help with her schoolwork. Puente has a network of volunteer tutors who work with youth for as long as they need the support. The relationship between student and tutor can make the difference between passing and failing in high school, and later, when choosing to pursue a college education.

“I just want to get good grades. I just want to improve,” says Odalys, quietly. “People at Puente say it’s not good to screw up in your first year, because it’s harder to get up on your feet after that.”

Odalys was paired with Kasey Butler, one of Puente’s volunteer tutors. In the span of just a few months, her grades in math and English have improved from Ds to Cs – a huge point of pride for Odalys.

But what really started making a difference is Odalys herself. Her perspective simply changed.

Rita Mancera traces that change back to this summer, which was the first time Odalys participated in Puente’s Youth Leadership and Development Program. “When she started this summer, she would not speak much,” says Mancera, Deputy Executive Director of Puente.

Odalys learned to use her voice, slowly, in working as an assistant to Abby Mohaupt, Puente’s Faith Community Liaison and Volunteer Coordinator. Odalys had tasks around the office that brought her into contact with the public: answering telephones, handing out flyers, staffing the front desk. She organized school supplies for Puente’s annual backpack distribution day, a major task. She was responsible and reliable, always showing up on time and ready to work, a skill that she continued to show after the summer program.

Odalys, far right, supervises at backpack and school supply day.

“I watched her become more assertive and want to find ways to push our program,” observes Mohaupt. She and Odalys bonded over the fact that they are both twins. As they got to know each other, Mohaupt discovered Odalys’ quiet sense of humor.

Later that summer, Mohaupt started taking Odalys to the Pescadero Grown! Farmers’ Market on Thursdays. They had a special mission: to walk around and talk with every single farmer. “I told her we were doing it so we could practice talking with strangers. She never liked it, but she did it anyway,” Mohaupt says.

The combination of encouragement and responsibility worked, because that summer, Odalys started applying herself more than ever. Each student enrolled in the Pescadero High School needs to read two books over the summer and complete book reports and vocabulary sheets. It’s meant to help students start the year with good grades in English, but many local Latino students find reading and writing very challenging and struggle to complete the assignment before school starts.

Odalys, who had poor grades in English, started reading and didn’t stop. Not only did she finish her assignment early, she was second out of the entire youth program cohort to do so.

Not only that, but by the end of the summer 22 out of 24 youth had completed their reading assignments. Shannon White, a high school teacher from Indiana and Omar Ortega spent every day working with the teens over the summer.

“Our youth are growing, and we get them at a time when they develop their character and we provide a space or them to grow in the most positive way,” says Mancera. “They’re at the age where they can choose. Almost every youth who works with us chooses the right path and they work hard at their school work.”

Odalys, far left, with some of the other participants in Puente’s summer youth program.

Odalys now appears determined to build on her early traction, going straight to Puente after school to complete her schoolwork. She also works part time with Puente, providing childcare during evening ESL classes. She spends some of her earnings on school materials, like a tablet she bought to help her do her homework.

Mancera says she can tell Odalys will go to college. It all started with the act of asking for help: the instinct to succeed, in spite of life’s limitations.

“I think she’s absorbing it all in her quiet way. A lot of the youth leaders here, they’re so loud and extroverted. She’s less vocal but she’s just as much of a leader,” says Mancera.

Puente needs your support this winter as we raise funds for our Youth Leadership and Development Program. You can make a real difference in the live of youth like Odalys. Please click here to donate. Thank you!.

“I don’t like it.”

Faced with a tough algebra problem, it’s not hard to see why Leonie, a middle school student in Pescadero, would lay her head on the table in front of her workbook and groan.

“You’re good at it, though,” answers her mentor Vanessa Centuron, a college student enrolled at UC Santa Cruz.

Leonie shakes her head. But she is good at math. She goes on to solve that algebra problem, and another one. Then she gets frustrated again.

“I can’t do it, I’m not smart,” declares Leonie.

“Yes, you are. You’re extremely intelligent. You just need to believe that,” coaxes Centuron, patiently.

Middle school students everywhere struggle with math homework. Here at Pescadero Middle/High School, students like Leonie are lucky enough to be paired with UCSC students like Centuron, who offer a kind of support that goes beyond the academic realm.

Leonie relaxes again. Around the room, at long wooden tables, several other mentor/mentee teams concentrate on science, reading and other English homework. Some are hunched over workbooks, others absorbed in a computer screen, none are alone.

To these 11-to-14-year-olds, the mentors in their midst aren’t just helping them with their schoolwork – they’re incredibly cool college students who represent their own prospective achievements.

Centuron even looks cool, with retro hipster glasses, an eyebrow piercing, and fingernails painted in purple and blue. She is one of six volunteer mentors who have been paired with middle school mentees as part of Classroom Connection, a UCSC field study-based education course. The program has evolved into an exciting partnership between Puente, the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District and Merrill College (one of the ten colleges at UCSC).

The college students, who are all Latino and English-Spanish bilingual, earn credits while they hone their teaching skills in K-12 classrooms in Santa Cruz, Watsonville and Pescadero. Pescadero is by far the longest drive for this cohort of college students, who take a two-hour round-trip van ride to the school district’s after-school program on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Several Merrill College students also volunteer in the mornings as classroom aides at Pescadero Elementary.

“You need to be making your future plans in middle school, and what better way to do it than to engage with a UC mentor who’s actually involved in it?” asks Margaret Sedillo, Guidance Counselor and Coordinator of the Mentor Program at Pescadero Middle/High School. “To see college life up close plants that seed for our students: ‘I can do this too.’”

The UCSC mentors are here because they want to be. Like their mentees, who have asked for a mentor, they are self-selecting. Some want to be educators; others are interested in other fields like psychology. But they chose Pescadero High, the smallest public high school in four surrounding counties, for reasons that are often deeply personal.

“I want to work in a high school with a lot of Latino students. I come from Oakland, where you often hear the message: ‘You can’t make it,’” says Monica Meza, a fourth year student at UCSC.

The college mentors are the children of first-generation Latino Americans, and they are often the first in their families to attend a four-year university. That’s something they have in common with their mentees, and it forges a bond. The younger students often ask detailed questions about college: what’s it like in a dorm? How do you pay for books and tuition when your family lives below the poverty line?

Mentors can make a difference in their mentees’ lives that is not only academic, but also behavioral.

Centuron says Leonie reminds her of what she was like at 13, in a way that worries her. Growing up in South San Diego, Centuron started skipping classes and spent a lot of time in detention. She was even suspended for a time. “I had horrible grades and it really defined my future. I want to help someone else before her GPA goes downhill. I feel that if I can get in there sooner, maybe her dreams won’t be so limited.”

Centuron and Leonie spend a lot of time discussing her future, she says. “I see a change in her behavior already.”

Puente board member Larry Trujillo knows just how many limitations these young students need to overcome.

“Some struggle with English language learning. Sometimes the family might not have education themselves and not know how to guide their students. Sometimes the student falls behind and loses confidence,” he says.

And when that happens, it can be very hard to regain. That’s another reason why the mentors can make such a profound difference, adds Trujillo. “Helping a student get their confidence back is as important as the academic skills.”

Trujillo has coordinated programs to bring UCSC students into Pescadero classrooms – twice. A former lecturer in Community Studies at UCSC, Trujillo helped create a program called Step to College that thrived in Pescadero for many years, bringing up to 60 UCSC mentors into local classrooms. It was discontinued when Trujillo retired.

But Puente did a reboot in 2014 when Trujillo and Suzanne Abel, Puente’s then-Academic Director, heard about Classroom Connection. Merrill College Provost Elizabeth Abrams was on board right away.

Mentors work with students on a full range of coursework and special projects. They help them prepare for tests. They also work with students on their study skills and time management issues – help them organize their backpacks and use their planning calendars.

Not only does Classroom Connection improve college and career readiness, it adds resources to the classroom and helps kids and their parents to see themselves in a different light. It dovetails with a La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District program that teaches parents how to engage with their children’s schoolwork, even if they don’t always understand it. They also learn about things like credits and transcripts.

“There’s been a longstanding commitment from the school district for this partnership. They’ve been doing the heavy lifting for a long time. We’ve played a role in making it a deeper program,” says Kerry Lobel, Executive Director of Puente.

Best of all, teachers themselves are already seeing very positive results. Last year, two teachers wrote to Trujillo to share just how much mentees had already improved by almost every qualitative and quantitative standard: classroom behavior, student performance on tests, quality and quantity of homework, motivation and independent reading.

Having a mentor can change a life forever. Noel Chavez, Puente’s newly hired Education Director, went into education because of key experiences with mentors as a youngster. Chavez came to the U.S. as a child. When he started school in the third grade, he could only write his name. But he loved academics and quickly excelled thanks to people like his fifth grade mentor, a Stanford University student who “gave me a perspective on what my future might look like,” he says.

Chávez also received life-changing mentorship at Sequoia High in Redwood City when he met student ambassadors from an outreach program at Cañada College. Later, he himself graduated from Cañada and later was hired to supervise that same student ambassador program.

“I noticed the chain of others mentoring me and I’ve been blessed to take on leadership in that role,” he says.

Pescadero students don’t have to imagine college life – they saw it for themselves on a recent field trip to UC Santa Cruz. The handcrafted tour took students to Merrill College, where Provost Abrams personally greeted them. They visited the university’s Chicano Latino Resource Center, where a group of Latino students talked to them about the experience of going to college. They saw impressive libraries, science and sports facilities. They got to eat in the college cafeteria.  Best of all, they got to spend the whole day with their mentors, who patiently answered all their questions. After months of hearing about the university, they were as eager as if they were visiting an amusement park.

“They all came back excited about college. It made us feel as though the seeds are taking root,” says Sedillo.

Paula Arriola has never been comfortable behind the wheel.

The mother of three has lived in Pescadero for 9 years, but has never driven farther than Morgan Hill. Like thousands of other undocumented Californians, she found herself obliged to drive without a license or any formal driver’s training. You can’t get around the South Coast without a car. But she restricted herself to getting to and from work and taking her daughter to school. “It does make me nervous,” she acknowledges.

It doesn’t help that Arriola, a single mother, has been driving around an old, beat-up car she kept from her former marriage. It doesn’t have an odometer, which is nerve-wracking because she’s always worried that she is speeding.

“I never know how fast I’m driving. I just follow the car in front of me. When there’s a car behind me, I just pull off to the side of the road and let them pass,” she says.

Arriola, whose name has been changed for this story, decided that 2015 would be a year of opportunity. She was emboldened by AB 60, the California law that, as of January 2015, gave all qualified residents the right to apply for a driver’s license regardless of legal status. She wanted a legal license and she wanted her own new, safer car. Her daughter Daisy, a college-bound 18-year-old, was working hard to earn her own driver’s permit and license. (Daisy passed both tests and received her license in September).

But the biggest incentive was hearing that Puente was teaching a class on the rules of the road, specifically to prepare students to pass the DMV “traffic laws and signs” test. And that the class was women-only, and taught by a woman, in Spanish and tuition-free.

Puente launched its AB 60 program in August 2014, with a community workshop to answer questions about the documentation and overall process required to get a legal driver’s license. Locals learned they would need proof of residency and photo identification. The latter could be obtained from the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco, something Puente helped facilitate for dozens of residents.

More than 549,000 undocumented Californians have become licensed drivers since the law went into effect, according to DMV estimates.

In late 2014, Ben Ranz, Puente’s Community Outreach Coordinator, began teaching classes on the rules of the road based on the DMV driver’s manual to help people pass the written test. He passed that role over to Charlea Binford, Puente’s Adult Education Coordinator who also teaches ESL and other Adult Education classes at Puente.

The class is an indispensable tool to help students manage their anxiety about passing the dreaded DMV test by helping them take practice tests, says Binford. There is a tremendous amount of material to memorize, so each class spends two months preparing for it. At the DMV, students can take the written test in Spanish. They can opt to fill out the answers on paper, on a computer screen, or via audio prompts which they answer orally.

Slowly, the numbers are climbing.

“We know of 48 people who have passed their written test. 18 of those 48 are women. 33 of those 48 have gone on to pass the road test,” says Ranz. Overall, Puente has helped 144 people in one way or another through the driver’s license process – whether that’s attendance at an informational session, making an appointment at the DMV, or help getting an ID. Puente even offered one class for farm workers who were never taught to read or write.

The idea for a women’s class came to Rita Mancera and Kerry Lobel, Puente’s leaders, when they noticed the low enrollment of female students in Puente’s co-ed driving classes. A class for women, taught by a woman, held the promise of a safe space where women could speak up without fear and learn at their own pace.

It was also a practical issue. “We knew they were already driving. We saw them bringing their children to school or going to get their groceries. The challenge was to help them a pass the laws and signs test,” says Mancera, Deputy Executive Director of Puente.

In class, students learn driving tips, as well as how to read hard-to-understand road signs, which are full of English words they may not know, and little mnemonic tools to help them memorize things like which way to turn the driving wheel when parking on a hill.

Even though she’s been driving for years, Arriola learned valuable information in class – like the importance of strapping her 7-year-old daughter into her child’s seat every single time they go for a drive, no matter how close their destination may be.

Many lessons are learned in the course of group conversations that build everyone’s confidence, because students teach each other the rules that they already know.

“I think men’s energy can change the dynamic of a group. This was the first time I’ve taught an all-women group, and I think it’s great. When one woman feels discouraged, the other women will raise her spirits,” says Binford.

Binford just finished teaching Puente’s second driving theory class for local women. Both classes have delivered a good success rate, with nearly all students going on to ace the written exam – if not at first, then eventually. The female students are exceptionally perseverant. One woman failed the test nine times before she passed it. For many participants, it was the first class they had taken in 15 or 20 years.

“I tell them they will probably fail the first time because they’re so stinking nervous. But they can take it again. And they’ll be able to think clearer the second time through once they get a feel for how the test is,” says Binford.

Arriola wasted no time taking her written exam at the DMV on November 16, which she passed with panache. She credits her Puente prep class. “I believe it’s better with all women. You feel comfortable with other women. We have more confidence together,” she says.

Paula Arriola with her new license.

For Binford, teaching is personal. She not only helps schedule her students’ DMV tests, she takes time out to drive them to the DMV, either in Redwood City, Capitola or Watsonville. She helps them manage their anxiety and oversees the registration process. When her students pass the test, she takes them out for ice cream to celebrate.

Sometimes Puente works with volunteers who also drive people to the DMV. It’s so important to have that human touch, says Binford. “Students are so nervous, and the DMV is not a welcoming place.”

Sometimes a DMV employee will challenge a woman’s proof of residency. Household bills and other acceptable forms of proof of residency are often in a husband’s name. In cases like that, Puente writes a letter on the woman’s behalf that affirms that she is a member of the community. This is an accepted document at the DMV, but Binford often has to intercede and make sure the DMV employees cooperate with the letter of the law.

When a student passes her driver’s test, it feels like both she and Binford have won.

“It’s such a privilege, because this process makes us friends. It’s something that we go through together and it makes me really happy to see their success,” she says.

Now, Binford is taking her students to the next level with a driving tutorial. She recently set up traffic cones in the parking lot of Pescadero High School and invited the women to practice steering and parallel parking. Binford is not a driving instructor, so she did not drive with them, but offered pointers through the car window. She also demonstrated how to change a tire. “They can practice with me and no one’s going to laugh at them or raise their voice,” she says.

Arriola would like to pass her driving test by the end of 2015. Having a driver’s license is not just a practical matter, but also a key to a brighter future. She works two cleaning jobs to support her family and pays the bills on her own. She also takes ESL and Zumba classes at Puente, which she balances with her other obligations.

“My goal is to have a different job. Or to be in charge of the cleaning service, to own my own business,” she says.

Arriola wants to drive her 7-year-old daughter up to Oregon to visit their relatives. She can already picture herself behind the wheel of her new car. “I’m growing with all these new things. I’m happy,” she adds.

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