Like many homes with school-aged children, the Torres household is filled with puzzles, crayons, stuffed animals and shelves of books.
Tonight, as with most Monday evenings this semester, three volunteers of the Migrant Aid Program are welcomed inside.
The three students have made the 30-minute drive from the University to tutor the three Torres children.
As she enters the Torres' home, third-year College student Heather Renfro, who has been tutoring the same family since last year, communicates for a short time with the parents in Spanish before starting the evening's tutoring.
Although speaking Spanish is not a requirement for the program, it is useful for at least one of the tutors in the group to be able to ask any questions to the parents or answer any questions they may have for the tutors.
The Torres children, Eduardo, 11, Ana, 6, and Christian, 4, seem to know the game plan as Eduardo heads off with third-year Commerce student Kathy Cho and gets his books out while the others settle down in the living room. Eduardo, a sixth-grader, gets a room all to himself in order to focus more intently on his studies.
While Eduardo and Cho get right to work assessing a map and trying to determine where exactly Venice and Bejing are located for a Social Science assignment, the younger children listen to what activities their tutors have prepared for them. Third-year College student Stephanie Brown comes up with an activity to help Christian learn the alphabet. Pouring multi-colored plastic alphabet letters down on the ground, she asks him, "Can you find the letter H?" and instructs him to put the correct letter onto the back of a toy truck.
"I know, I know," Christian replies with a wide grin as he places the orange H excitedly into the truck.
Ana, overhearing her brother's enthusiasm remarks, "He really likes the letter H."
At a table, Ana is involved in a similar hands-on activity, grasping a pair of scissors while Renfro assists her in cutting out pictures to create a story. For the most part, the volunteers have the flexibility to create their own activities, whether it is drawing pictures to explain words or putting plastic letters into a toy truck like Christian.
The Migrant Aid Program is divided in to Adult Tutoring for migrant workers and Homework Helpers for their children.
"Migrant Aid works in partnership with Virginia Migrant Education. The members of that group identify migrant families and act as case workers for them, letting us know those families who need our help the most -- usually the ones who have been here the least amount of time," said fourth-year College student and Migrant Aid Program Director Lara Eilhardt.
She added that while there are probably "thousands of migrant families within Albemarle county alone who could benefit from the tutoring program, Migrant Aid sets a requirement to tutor only those families who have been in America for under three years."
While volunteers in Homework Helpers, such as Brown, Cho and Renfro tutor at the children's homes, Adult Tutoring "takes place at three migrant camps in Covesville, Spring Valley and Jarman's Gap which are all located in Albemarle County", Eilhardt said.
Created in 1973 by University students, the Migrant Aid Program was a response to a growing migrant community who the students felt they could assist through tutoring offered to both adult workers and their children, Eilhardt added.
"Adult tutoring is comprised of groups of 10 volunteers who go out twice a week to these camps where they tutor men roughly between the ages of 16-30 from Mexico and Central America. Usually they don't know much English at all, so we help them with things like how to ask for things at the grocery store, or how to get a bus ticket ... very practical information to help them get through their life here. We are one of their very few contacts with Americans, they value that and that we help them speak English. Although their focus is tutoring them in English, we are also a resource for them to ask questions whether it something about their employer or making a doctor's appointment," Eilhardt said.
Although the Torres family has been able to live in the same area for a couple of years, "the nature of most of the migrant workers' lives is that they come to the U.S. every fall, work in Virginia for two to three months, either go back to Mexico or go south to the Carolinas or Florida to work in the orange groves," Eilhardt added.
The men live in the camps which Eilhardt described as "pretty sub-standardized housing, but even so, the atmosphere makes you feel like you are in Mexico ... listening to Mexican music and hearing everyone speak Spanish."
Second-year College student Emily Albertson who also volunteers as a member of Homework Helpers, goes alone to the home of Bere, a seven-year old girl -- the only one in her family to speak English.
While Albertson admitted the difficulties in making vast leaps of progress in her once-a-week meetings with Bere, she also said there are many positive aspects.
"It's really rewarding to see her read a book she couldn't a couple weeks back, or do a math problem she couldn't figure out not so long ago," Albertson said.
Like many of the other volunteers, Albertson realizes the importance of helping these children bridge the crucial language gap between their native Spanish and a very foreign English. Eilhardt added that "the children need to immediately adjust even if they know some English because they are usually several years behind American school children of the same age."
Back at the Torres' house, the children begin getting restless after sustaining more than an hour of hard work. Christian, giving up on identifying letters, even his prized "H", grabs a pillow and pretends to fall asleep. In the other room, Cho finally gives in to Eduardo's pleas to end the evening's session with "something fun" by playing an entertaining round of "Guess Who." Brown, Cho and Renfro say their good-byes and as they walk out the door, Ana runs over with her toy bear and waves its hand to say good-bye too.
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