Dozens of people gathered in El Jebel on Wednesday, May 1 to celebrate the groundbreaking of English In Action’s new tutoring and communication center.
The nonprofit matches volunteer tutors with adult immigrants who want to learn English, with a larger mission to build relationships across cultural divides.
The program started in 1994 in response to an increasing number of new immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, arriving in the Roaring Fork Valley.
For nearly two decades, it has operated out of a small, modular home in El Jebel that only has room for about 20 students and tutors at a time.
“Demand for our services has always been higher than what we can meet in our current space, so it certainly has limited our capacity to serve more people and to expand our small group tutoring programs,” Executive Director Lara Beaulieu told Aspen Public Radio, in an interview ahead of the groundbreaking.
There are currently about 125 students on the waitlist for the nonprofit’s one-on-one tutoring program. The expansion could help get more people into group lessons.
The new building, in the same location, will have capacity for about 100 people, including eight new rooms for small group tutoring.
At Wednesday’s groundbreaking ceremony, Executive Director Lara Beaulieu started off the speeches by giving a brief history of immigration in the area, including Europeans and other non-native people, who began arriving in the late 1800s.
She then thanked the numerous cities and counties that supported the project, as well as English In Action’s landlord, the Crawford family, for donating a 50-year lease for the new building.
“For the last three generations, this land has been owned and stewarded by the Crawford family,” Beaulieu said. “It has become a hub for thousands and thousands of workers and community members in our valley.”
Several other community members with ties to the nonprofit spoke at the groundbreaking, including English In Action board member and tutor Lynn Nichols.
Nichols’ student, Gloria Castillo, was in the audience.
“I show up for Gloria, because she asks for help to speak English with confidence and to actively participate in her community,” Nichols said. “And Gloria shares with me her perspective. And because of that, I now understand how challenging it is to live and work in the Roaring Fork Valley as an immigrant.”
Nichols and Castillo were first matched as a student-tutor pair 15 years ago, and Castillo was tearing up during Nichols’ speech.
“Lynn is a really important part in my life, she's not only my tutor, she is my friend,” Castillo said. “The relationship turns the tutor and student into friends and I can share my life with her and she supports me a lot.”
Over the years, Castillo has shared a lot of life milestones with Nichols, including getting a divorce and sending her oldest daughter off to college.
“I got to be a part of that and help Gloria as her daughter was getting ready for college, you know, ‘What's it like to live in a dorm?’ Or ‘What's it like to move away?,’” Nichols said. “And now her oldest daughter has finished college, gotten married, had a baby, and is living a very successful life in Fort Collins.”
Castillo immigrated to the valley from Mexico City in search of a better life for herself and a good education for her children, but the transition has not always been easy.
“I am thankful every day in my life since I got here, because I love Colorado. It’s changed my life,” Castillo said. “But life for immigrant people is hard, for some it’s harder than for others, and for me, it’s hard, really hard.”
Castillo is proud to have embraced a new culture and made a home for herself in the valley. Her commitment to learning English is a significant part of that.
“For me learning English is hard, but I don’t want to stop learning,” she said. “Lynn always inspired me to keep going and make mistakes. You have to make mistakes to learn.”
Nichols and Castillo hope the new communication center will allow more students and tutors to connect with each other, like they have.
Over the last two years, English In Action has raised about $4.3 million out of its $5 million goal for its “Welcome Home Campaign” to build the new center, which should be completed next year.
During construction, the nonprofit will have a temporary space in El Jebel next to the restaurant, Breakfast In America.
The organization is also working with local libraries to host some one-on-one and group tutoring sessions, including the new “open hours” tutor lessons at the Carbondale Library on Monday evenings.
