A Cuban’s Dream

Hi and thank you for visiting this page and many thanks in advance for any donations provided. This project is for a dear friend of mine who is a graduate student in Miami. She works as a teacher aide at a elementary school and devotes many hours helping students to learn english as well as spanish. She also gives her time tutoring many of her students after school without pay in many instances. Her heart is 'for the children" as she says. She attends night classes and on many occasions she awakes at night studying with only several hours of sleep. Then she returns to the elementary school to devote herself to her students. As a teacher aide she barely has enough to take care of her rent, car payment, insurance, cell phone bill and food. You may ask, then how is she paying for school? She does that with student loans which she doesn't mind paying back once she graduates and secures a career. Every weekend she also cleans houses and does pedicures/manicures and still only manages to barely pay her bills. This woman works so hard and even on the weekend when most of us rest.

My friend is an immigrant from Cuba and has been in the US for 5 years now and she's has a work ethic like no other. She also has made a sacrifice of leaving her daughter with relatives in Cuba so that she can provide a better life for the both of them. She manages to send money to take care of her daughter often neglecting her own needs. But this woman never complains and keeps on going. I admire her strength and courage! But here in the US everything cost money. She never has money for herself and always put the needs of others before herself.

She told me that soon she will receive her Master's but will have to complete an internship. I told her, "that's great!" But the internship in nonpaid and will last for 3 months. During that time she can't work at the elementary school and will lose the income needed to pay for her bills. On top of that, the internship is in another county and she will have to drive to get there, creating added expenses.

This is why I created this fundraiser to help my Cuban friend to achieve her dream of completing her Master's Degree in Education and to create a better life for her daughter whom will arrive to the US. My friend has dream of becoming a Principal. So if you can donate any amount it would be greatly appreciated and the lives of her future students will be benefited as well. It would be a shame for her to work so hard for so long only to have to abandon her dream. Thanks again for any donations and/or suggestions.