blessing,” she emphasizes when asked what the Hope Center can do for her colonia.
Pointing to the Castellanos family’s progress, Millan says, “Our vision is to transform hearts. We want to change everything in the community and even in the family, but it happens if you start to transform hearts. Selene very much does exactly this. She can influence even the com- munity. She understood she can even influence the country, if she pays attention to what she’s doing. She moved her family to listen and make the changes that are important. And they influence the community, tell the families that they can do more and together make many changes.” The Hope Center is the platform Buckner uses to reach deep into the families of Trituradora with services, aid and hope. “With the Family Hope Center, there is more attention offered to
the children; they receive help with their education, and they get help with their homework,” Hernandez explains. “Right now we are doing a children’s education workshop since the school year is done. There
is a dining area where the children receive breakfast, and the children who come get attention.” One of the goals of the Hope Center is to provide something for each part of the family in order to strengthen the whole. “Buckner provides workshops and discussions with the mothers and fathers because generally, in this area, the father works all day and the mother is in charge of taking care of the kids,” Hernandez says. “So there comes a point when it becomes stressful. Part of our project is to strengthen the marriage of the father and mother. We understand that they work, but we program the activity so they can ask for time off.” Looking at the Hope Center and the neighborhood it serves,
Hernandez reflects on what the place means to the community and moving families from clients to those with servant hearts. “To build this, everybody helped. I mean everybody,” she empha- sizes. “I feel it really helped Selene’s family to be more united, because it was everybody doing everything. Some think it was the mason who
The Family Hope Center for the Trituradora colonia helps clients with aid such as providing new shoes (bottom left) as well as opportunities to learn life skills like family communication, budgeting and cooking (right) to empower families and move them from clients to volunteers, such as the Jose Castro family (top left). Despite being out of work, Castro is often found helping other families in need and volunteering for Buckner.
36 Buckner Today • FALL 2015 ISSUE
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