Child development class opens doors for mom

LAWRENCE — For five years, Celina Reyes commuted 45 minutes from Lawrence to Revere to work as a maid at Marriott Hotel.

The job took its toll when gas prices began to rise. She hardly ever spent time with her husband and their three children.

The hotel job also varied seasonally, and during the winter months she did not work enough hours to get insurance. To make ends meet, she worked weekends as a cashier at a gas station in Lawrence.

Then opportunity knocked on her door when a friend suggested she take child development classes. After all, she was volunteering at Arlington School and the courses would be a steppingstone to a future career.

"It was motivating for me because you always ask your children to study and do well," Reyes said. "This was an example to let them know you also need to improve your life."

Reyes was one of 38 Lawrence residents who completed the Urban College Child Care Economic Opportunity Project and received certificates of achievement in home-based child care.

The program was funded in 2007 with a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Urban College teamed up with Child Care Circuit, a resource and referral agency in Lawrence, to offer the classes.

"The project is improving quality of life for these graduates and their families," said Susan Kooperstein, public affairs director for Action for Boston Community Development, which started Urban College.

"(It's) expanding critically needed child care and helping to generate economic activity in under-served neighborhoods during the current economic slump," Kooperstein said.

Reyes, 31, and her classmates took courses in early childhood education, business management, information technology, and communication for entrepreneurs, with the goal of managing their own child care centers.

This summer, graduates will finish a financial literacy program sponsored by TD BankNorth.

"It was very emotional for me. I had taken the classes to better myself as a person," Reyes said.

At her South Lawrence home, Reyes takes care of an 18-month-old, a 22-month-old and 4-year-old full-time and an 11-year-old after school — along with her daughter, Ancelis, 4.

"This is the best of both worlds because I'm working at home, teaching someone else's children and my daughter," Reyes said.

Reyes and her husband, Cesar, a truck driver, have three children including Ancelis, Janer, 15, a student at Lawrence High, and Gabriella, 8, second-grader at South Lawrence East School and Ancelis, 4.

For Reyes, being a child care provider, is coming full circle. Growing up in La Vega, a town in the Dominican Republic, Reyes thought of becoming a teacher or a lawyer.

"I love children because I have the patience to teach them and play with them," she said.

In the living room, there are posters with pink pigs, yellow rubber ducks, dolls in purple, green, red and green dresses to teach children how to count from one to 10.

Reyes has a white dry-erase board where Ancelis practices writing letters of the alphabet with the 4-year-old her mother cares for.

"I liked everything about the class because I not only learned more tools on how to educate my own children, but I learn about technology."

With her experience in Excel, she now creates fliers, brochures and greeting cards," she said. "The classes opened up a whole new world for me, which I never knew."

Photos

Staff Photographer