There are many tutoring and mentoring programs around Athens, but few focus on the development and growth of Latinos in the community. The few that do fall under the umbrella of the University’s Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education – CLASE.

“CLASE’s main goal is to help the local Latino community with education, mentoring and tutoring,” said Paul Matthews, Assistant Director and Outreach Coordinator for CLASE.

Matthews said University students have been tutoring at various locations in Athens since 2003, but CLASE wasn’t created until 2004.

“We have several hundred University of Georgia students involved in tutoring,” Matthews said. “Some students do it for volunteer hours and others are able to get class credit hours for tutoring.”

Juan Lazo, a senior from Lima, Peru, has been tutoring since September 2007. Lazo, president of Lambda Theta Phi Fraternidad Latina, Inc., has worked at Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela (one of the CLASE programs) along with his fraternity brothers.

Lazo said his fraternity chose Oasis Católico as its philanthropy project because CLASE’s goals matched up with their own.

“We wanted to do something that targeted the Latino community. Something that I learned from Dr. [Pedro] Portes [Executive Director of CLASE] is that in order to ensure that the Latino population is going to increase in college, you want to target them when they’re younger,” Lazo said.

Marilynn Delacruz, a senior from Kingsland, has also volunteered at Oasis Católico.

“It’s really rewarding. Coming from a Latin American background, I felt myself identify with some of the kids and the things they go through at Oasis,” Delacruz said. “I think it’s a great opportunity to give back and show the kids that there’s something outside of just graduating high school and then working – that there’s the opportunity to further your education and better your life – because some of them don’t see that at home.”

Matthews said many times students develop relationships with the children they are working with.

“Tutoring is almost as beneficial for the students as it is for the children they’re working with” he said.