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board, says she tries to meet the most pressing needs of the children in Vickery Meadow, specifically through education and enrichment programs.

“We work closely with the schools that serve the neighborhood, assess the greatest needs, and try to put the best programs in place to meet those needs.”

One such program is Avance, a group thatworkswithelementaryschools servingat-riskfamilies that’sthe one that changed the lives of Sanchez, the 24-year-old mother, and her three children.

“The most important thing I learned inAvance is that I am my child’s first teacher,” Sanchez says, “and that you only have one life to enjoy time with your children. Now we spend time together. I read to them. I never used to do that. I realize now that they need me.”

Another mom, Maria Martinez, says her children, ages 5 and 3, once only seemed to compound life’s pressures.

“Iusedtogetannoyedwhenthey asked me questions,” she says through aninterpreter.“Now I taketimeto answer every question.”

Sanchez and Martinez are among 30 or so moms of elementary- and preschool-age children who gather Tuesdays from 8:30 to 11 a.m. at Hotchkiss Elementary (a Dallas ISD school located just a mile from White Rock Elementary) to learn how to be better parents.

OnthedayfollowingChristmas break, the Avance moms sew pillows for their children. Sanchez says she’s learned to handcraft gifts for her children.Meanwhile,theyoungchildren areinpreschoolatnearbyportable buildings.Onemajorprobleminthe

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Vickery Meadow area, Stowe says, is the lack of preschools. “Research shows that brain development begins in early childhood,” she says. “So (if they don’t go to preschool) when they enter kindergarten or first grade, they are already at a disadvantage.”

Nearby,Vickery MeadowLearning Center’s Family English Literacy program provides preschool for children of the center’s adult students.

LakeHighlands resident Liz Luthans, who works in the oil industry by day, says her volunteer teaching assignment at the Vickery Meadow Learning Center is the highlight of every week.

“The students are hardworking, gracious and appreciative,” she says. “Many of them come to my night class following a day of hard work — cleaning houses, working construction jobs. They want to learn to communicate with their children’s teachers, and to get better jobs and build a better life. They are dedicated.”

They are a diverse group of students whose native tongues are varied.

“When I first started about four years ago,thestudentswerepredominately Spanish speaking,” Luthans says. “Now we have students from Burma, Iran, Peru there are two brothers from the Congo and French-speaking African natives. Many of them are refugees.”

Englishistheonlylanguagespoken in the VMLC classroom. In addition to learning English and grammar, Luthans says, students learn about things such as health issues and American culture, “and

I learn about their culture.”

She says that in Mexico the government funds public education only through the sixth-grade.

“Did you know that? Most people don’t know that.”

As a by-product,educational and enrichmentprogramsmovemembers ofVickeryMeadow to interact with and support one another, Stowe notes. Mothers who traditionally kept to themselves will work together on behalf of their children, she says.

Sanchez says that’s true in her case.

“Iusedtobe a soloperson,doing everything alone, but when I met the other moms in Avance, we began going shoppingtogether,supportingeach other. This experience has shown me