Housing is deplorable, with as many as three families sharing a single trailer. Most of the people who live here work exhausting hours in the fields, yet earn an average of just $8,500 a year. A language other than English is spoken in 80 percent of the homes, and most residents are uneducated.

For the past 25 years the Guadalupe Center of Immokalee (GCI) has been making a difference in these families’ lives.

It all starts with the center’s Early Childhood Education Program. Since the opening of a new, state-of-the-art education center, enrollment has increased to 158 children. The goal of the program is to ensure all of the children start kindergarten on equal footing with their fellow students.

Despite the incredible odds, in recent testing, GCI students placed the early education program in the top tier in the state and, out of 44 programs in Collier County, it ranks fifth.

The Guadalupe Center does not stop there. Pinecrest Elementary School in Immokalee is one of the lowest-scoring schools in the state. GCI’s after-school tutoring program provides 250 Pinecrest students with the extra help they need and each year successfully keeps these students at grade level. However, as formal testing illustrates, many more also need tutoring.

The year-round education program serves children from K–2 during the school breaks in winter, spring and summer. These programs provide a safe, secure environment for children who would otherwise be left unsupervised, ensure that the children receive lunch and a snack, and focus on reinforcing academic skills taught during the school year. The summer program is the only eight-week summer instructional program in Immokalee that’s free to parents.

The Guadalupe Center Tutor Corps program is the largest employer of high school students in Immokalee, hiring top Immokalee High School students each year. They earn a wage, a college scholarship, receive college counseling and are assigned a mentor. The tutors are also an integral part of all educational programs providing instruction to the younger children. Last year, 21 tutors graduated, and every one is attending college. That’s a remarkable success considering the high school’s 60 percent dropout rate.

Education is the key, but GCI also helps families in need in other ways. Each day the soup kitchen provides a hot meal to workers, mothers and children. The back-to-school shoes program provides children with a new pair of shoes — for many, the first pair of new shoes they have ever had. On Thanksgiving, the Guadalupe Center throws the biggest Thanksgiving dinner in Southwest Florida. Four thousand families are served turkey and all the fixings. At Christmas, Santa makes an early visit, giving hundreds of the poorest families a chance to pick out presents at the holiday gift shop to put under their children’s Christmas trees.

The next 25 years?
The new addition to the Jim Near Guadalupe Center will be completed next summer, and the center will expand the early education program to more than 250 children. However, the growth will need to continue with a waiting list exceeding 300 children and another 1,200 children not receiving services from any organization or agency.

The after-school tutoring program has just added a second site at Highlands Elementary School, with the ultimate goal of increasing capacity to provide service to all Immokalee children in kindergarten through second grade.

The year-round education program, located at Pinecrest Elementary School, will expand to a second site in the summer of 2008. The two sites will provide programs for more than 400 children. But, again, there are many more students in need of this program.

The Tutor Corps will expand, and more scholarship money will be available for these students to complete their college education. Many say they will return to Immokalee as skilled professionals, thus breaking the cycle of poverty.

In 25 years, the Guadalupe Center of Immokalee has seen tremendous growth. Continued community support is essential to making sure the next 25 years are as successful.