Winner Update: Spanish Speaking Community of Maryland

I wanted to take some time and talk to you guys about the impact that you made with your $100 donation to our organization three months ago. We were able to, and we’re still able to obviously, continue to help people with domestic violence situations, sex trafficking situations, but we do a lot more than that. If you were here three months ago, I think it was three months ago, and remember my speech, we walk side-by-side with our clients. So, whatever the case may be, if they need help with nutrition or they need help with translation services or they need help with something at FCPS, we’re there for them. Something else that we do as well is tenant-landlord issues. I actually have a letter from a recent case that we dealt with. This is a huge crisis in Frederick County that a lot of you may not be aware of. There’s a lot of slumlords out there, and there’s a lot of people in the international community that are too scared to speak up for themselves because they’re in a month-to-month lease at this point and they’re scared they’re gonna get kicked out quite frankly. I’m gonna read this. This is verbatim. This has been translated from Spanish, so it might seem a little broken. This is from October 15th, 2018.

“Dear Spanish Speaking Community of Maryland, we are a very grateful family, especially for Maria Herrera,” who’s my mom, who’s our executive director right here in the audience. “Because you are a team of people to help people. You have helped with filling out medical papers for my son who was sick. You gave me a wheelchair for my sick son. You helped us get the bathtub fixed that had mold and cuts, and I could not put my sick son, child in it. You helped me with Children’s Hospital. You helped me with my other son in middle school. He did not want to go to school, and thanks to your team, he is happy now in school. You went to school with me to help me with the language and helped me speak to the assistant principal. You always answer my calls. You have speaked to my landlord and helped me get the carpet changed that smelled awful and had water and lots of damage and holes in the wall of my apartment. Your team is wanting to help us with anything we need. We are very low income, and we have a lot of need. Thank you for everything. I am so happy that this organization is here. We’ve never had this before, people like you to come to our house to help people who care like this, people who do not stop until everything is fixed and care that families get help. Now you are working on getting medications paid for my son with health issue. Thank you for everything you do for us.”