Meet Elizabeth! Outside of class, this sophomore international affairs major from Fort Valley has a strong passion for children who are in need. She is an administrative assistant for Oasis Catolico, which is an after school program for Latino children in Athens whose second language is English.
“In my job I tutor, I do the office works to make the tutoring program run smoothly; I help distribute the food that the food bank brings on Fridays and check with the children’s families on occasion to see if the need anything,” Morales said.
Being an administrative assistant is a very intense job because she has to work every weekday with the children and make it fit around her schedule, but Elizabeth was willing to take the job because she could relate a lot to the kids.
“I wanted to do more in the community and I wanted to be able to be there every day for these kids,” she said. “Right now we’re actually working on building the kids a soccer field so they can have an activity to play after school.”
Elizabeth’s parents were both born and raised in Mexico so she was raised in a culture where Spanish was her first language. She is the first one in her family to make it into college.
“I have never had an english conversation with my parents, and my parents never got to graduate high school,” Morales said. “So for these kids, it’s the same situation because they’re new to this country and they want a chance to be successful in life, and this is my way of helping them as people helped me along my way.”